Even in crisis, Europe’s 'babus' refuse to work 40 hours/week!

Brussels civil servants are refusing to discuss austerity measures aimed at cutting the cost of the EU and claimed that having to work a 40-hour week - an extra two-and-a-half hours - would ruin the "attractiveness" of their jobs.

Trade unions representing the EU's army of 55,000 officials have refused to discuss proposals for a 40-hour working week, the key measure in a Brussels drive to save taxpayers pounds 870?million a year by 2020.

The longer week is vital to a European Commission plan to save money by cutting the number of EU officials by five per cent at a time when national public sector workers are facing huge redundancies and sweeping austerity programmes.

But the measure, already regarded as minimal by cash-strapped national governments seeking to cut their EU contributions, has been rejected outright by trade unions representing civil servants who are among the best rewarded in the world.

"The unions and staff associations replied to this proposal with a categorical 'Niet!'," the Equipe d' Union Syndicale, a group of trade union leaders, told its members.

"The attractiveness of the European civil service would deteriorate. It would be a socially backward step that the unions and staff associations reject emphatically."

Martin Callanan, the leader of the European Conservatives, said: "Public sector staff the world over are facing cutbacks and wage freezes. But here in Brussels they seem to think they live in an economic microclimate where money grows on trees and the world owes them a very comfortable living. They need to get real and start to talk to us about how they can help Europe out of this crisis."

The EU staff unions are also opposed to any changes to a generous flexitime scheme that meant 2,000 Brussels officials, earning from pounds 104,000 to pounds 185,000 a year, were entitled to three months off work on full pay last year.

Despite being paid six-figure salaries, the EU's most senior civil servants have been allowed to join the scheme, originally meant for secretarial staff, that gives them an extra 24 days off work every year if they put in an extra 45 minutes a day in the office. The perk comes on top of annual holidays of 24 days as well as seven days off for public holidays, and in 2010, 11 "non-working" days out of the office when the Brussels institutions were closed in summer and at Christmas.

Last year many EU staff were entitled to 66 days - 13 weeks or a quarter of the year - off work. Unions have opposed a commission request that senior management grades be taken out of the scheme.

Stephen Booth, of the Open Europe pressure group, said: "This protest shows a complete lack of self-awareness and is an insult to taxpayers all over Europe who face falling living standards and the threat of redundancy."