New Year court battle looming over EU wages

European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso will after the Christmas holidays propose that the executive takes member states to court over a decision to slash a pay rise for EU officials. Member states on Wednesday (23 December) unanimously agreed to cut the planned 2010 wage increase from 3.70 percent to 1.85 percent.

The move follows a push by EU budget paymasters Germany, the UK and the Netherlands, as well as poorer countries, such as Poland, to reduce the hike amid negative public opinion caused by the recession.

Lawyers in the commission and the EU Council have said that the cutback is illegal, as it violates the terms of an earlier agreement on calculating EU officials' wages.

"The president [Mr Barroso] and vice president Kallas are going to inform the college of the state of play at the first college meeting in January," commission spokesman Amadeu Altafaj Tardio said on Wednesday.

The full college of 27 EU commissioners will have to agree on whether or not to go to court. But Mr Barroso plans to recommend a legal challenge.

"The proposal which ensues will be to launch proceedings to strike down this decision in the Court of Justice," Mr Tardio said, referring to the EU's top tribunal in Luxembourg.

EU officials are confident of winning any court action swiftly, pointing to a precedent in their favour in 1972.

"I don't think it will take two years ...it can in fact go quite quickly," Mr Tardio said.

The court proceedings are likely to be accompanied by strike action across the EU institutions, including the EU parliament, potentially disrupting scheduled hearings of EU commission nominees in early January.

Trade unions, such as the FFPE, have also threatened to obstruct other procedures, such as the creation of the EU's new diplomatic service, if the dispute does not go their way.

"Member states can't solve the financial crisis, which is the real problem," the EU Council's top delegate to the FFPE trade union, Renzo Carpenito, told EUobserver on Tuesday. "The pay dispute is a good dossier to improve their image."

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