Celebration of Europe Day and the Charlemagne Prize in a time of crisis
On the occasion of the Charlemagne
Prize 2016 awarded annually for work done in the service of European
unification, Pope Francis made this
acceptance speech before the Presidents of the three European Institutions
(the speeches of Martin Schulz - Jean-Claude Juncker - Donald Tusk). This
declaration represents a very sombre reflection of the deep crisis that Europe
is now facing but which at the same time provides a unique opportunity for
finding a future path.
At the moment Europe seems to have lost its
spirit, its values and its momentum. To the same extent our Institutions seem
unable to redress the situation and often give the impression of themselves
being resigned.
In common with the citizens of the EU, staff of
the Institutions are feeling despondent and a growing concern over a "tired
and aged Europe, sterile and lifeless, where the great ideals that inspired
Europe seem to have lost their attractive force".
R&D hopes that the enthusiastic reception
that was reserved for the speech by the Presidents and other senior
representatives of our Institutions that were present, can materialize in a
transformation of actions and management of our services in order to make staff
feel once again to be at the heart of the European project we have chosen to
serve.
Reallocation of staff, creation of an office for infrastructure and logistics and abolition of TAS
NOTE TO THE ATTENTION OF MR V. ŠUCHA – DIRECTOR GENERAL OF THE JRC
Subject: R&D's view about reallocation of staff, support functions, alignment to Commission practices and simplification of procedures
Dear Mr Šucha,
We wish to thank you for your prompt and open reply to our letter last week, and we take up your offer to continue our interaction with you.
We recognise some efforts to provide staff with practical guidance on the new organisational chart and their potential role in it have been made through the introduction of a Career Guidance Support Network.
On this specific issue, we have noticed that the concept of the "Mobility Space", despite being cited in the JRC strategy, is no longer mentioned in your most recent communications. The alternative approach based on a Career Guidance Support Network implies that the responsibility to help colleagues in finding their role in the new structure rests exclusively with JRC management, with no involvement of staff representatives. This approach is consistent with the current poor practice at Ispra and Seville, where the Mobility Committee is in a state of stasis, last meeting two years ago. We believe that your decision to abandon any reference to the Mobility Space for the current transition to the new JRC structure is largely due to the difficulties faced to start the promised pilot phase and the barriers that are transforming what should be such a simple-to-implement project into a nearly impossible endeavour. We share your frustration, since we all know that the future perception of the Mobility Space will highly depend on the time of its introduction: if it is used to assist in the implementation of the reorganisation in a positive way, it will truly become a useful tool to match the institutional needs with the ambitions of the staff, whereas if it will be brought in at a later stage only to deal with "difficult cases", it will be viewed with due suspicion by staff.
In the meantime, we have noticed that the Commission has recently published on MyIntracomm a call for the expression of interest to ADs in DGs AGRI, DGT, EAC, GROW and SCIC to deal with the readjustment of staff levels across several DGs by means of voluntary mobility. This is an open and transparent process that, mutatis mutandis, could serve as an example for an internal JRC call dealing with our reorganisation, for as long as the Mobility Space is not available. This call could be launched as soon as the new organisational chart is approved, and before decisions affecting individual staff may be taken in a possibly less transparent way.
We also wish to come back to our earlier proposal regarding the "Resources" Directorate. We understand and fully agree with you that the future of the JRC is best protected by keeping it in line with Commission practice wherever possible. We also appreciate that it may be difficult to make any further significant change to the organisational chart at this stage of the approval process. Nevertheless, we wish to more clearly lay out our vision regarding the progression of the support function.
The current foreseen Directorate "R" contains elements belonging to traditional areas of competence also common to other DGs, as well as specific competences not managed by a typical DG in the rest of the Commission. In order to better follow the management structure of other DGs we propose that a more comprehensive name for Directorate "A" would be "Strategy, Resources and Coordination". Indeed it already has a "Resource Planning" function which could be further strengthened by putting the "Budget & Accounting" function also under the logical control of the same Directorate. "Human Resources" is already envisaged to become attached to DG HR in the near future, and following the same logic we believe that Corporate "ICT" could also eventually become part of DG DIGIT.
In order to fully adhere to your ambition of keeping the JRC in line with Commission practice wherever possible, all the remaining elements dealing with conventional JRC infrastructure and logistics could then become part of an Office, either OIB or a newly established one. This would reflect the current situation in Brussels and Luxembourg, where infrastructure is managed by independent offices and not by individual DGs, and it would comply with the recommendations contained in the document "Synergies and Efficiencies in the Commission - New Ways of Working" recently published on MyIntracomm. This document states that "where appropriate, making more use of Offices such as the PMO, the OIB/OIL, EPSO, or the European School of Administration can be examined. This will not only reduce the cost of support functions, but also provide better career opportunities for contract agents." Such a change would be expected to provide required efficiency gains for the JRC. Furthermore, we have always been concerned about the precarious situation of many temporary staff working at the JRC, and the full re-alignment of the JRC to Commission practice would offer the opportunity to resolve this situation through the conversion to open-ended CA 3a contracts for many current staff.
Additionally, infrastructure management by an Office could facilitate other DGs to locate some knowledge intensive activities, either temporarily or permanently, at JRC sites, reinforcing the sites themselves and boosting collaboration between the JRC and partner DGs. The proposed new organisational chart does indeed move in the right direction in that it envisages a central management of JRC support functions. We therefore see it as an intermediate step setting the framework to be followed by further moves towards the structure we have proposed above.
Lastly, we are pleased with your agreement that we must strive to improve our efficiency by analysing support processes and administrative procedures, and we share your disappointment for past difficulties encountered in realizing improvements. Nevertheless, action in this respect is now more urgent than ever, given a Commission mantra of having to do more with less. In order to send a clear signal to staff about your common sense commitment to simplification, we invite you to act to abolish the TAS (Time Accounting System): at the end of the year it always miraculously mirrors the staff allocation planned at the beginning, without contributing in any way neither to project management nor to common sense.
Robert Kenny
R&D Ispra
(signed)
Paola Di Pietrogiacomo
R&D Seville
(signed)
Cristiano Sebastiani
R&D Brussels
(signed)
Cc: Ms M.Rute
Mr J.P. Gammel
Full story here
Smart foxes are winners
R&D asks: the JRC Strategy - Ready for take off?
Today we sent our Director
General some comments and questions about the current direction of the
implementation of the JRC strategy 2030.
The proposed new organisational
chart recently presented to staff contains many innovative ideas and has the
potential to enable the JRC to be more productive and successful in the future.
We believe that most staff are
willing to support the proposed changes, but in order to be fully convinced
they need answers to a number of questions concerning the details of the
reorganisation. For instance, while the concept of Knowledge Management (KM) is
a major innovation for the JRC, a document describing what these KM units will be doing and how they
should work is still missing. Another important issue is the staff ratio target
of 70:30 Work Programme to Support
services that has been included in the Strategy, but how this is to be
attained in practise is still unclear.
JRC Strategy 2030 now available on Connected
As anticipated last week, the
JRC Strategy 2030 is now available on Connected.
In preparation of a new
meeting on the JRC strategy between Trade Unions and the DG (planned for 8th
March), we would be happy to receive your opinion and questions on the
document. Feel free to write your comments or to meet us at our secretariat in
Building 63 – we are always available to listen to you!
R&D member? Discover now how the JRC strategy may affect you!
R&D embraces the vision that the core business of
the JRC is to provide science-based input to EU policies. A medium and long
term vision is essential to guarantee continuity and the future of every
serious organisation. The DG has launched the development of a long term
strategy and R&D has been following its progress very closely.
The new strategy is an "evolution" rather
than a "revolution". The take-home messages are:
·
The JRC is put at
the centre of the decision making process and remains as a Commission DG. Our
work programme is driven by the current and forthcoming Commission policy
priorities
·
All of the JRC
sites will remain, and a stable level of budget and resources is envisaged
·
No additional
staff cuts – above those already imposed for the whole Commission – will take
place. Adaptation to the Commission-wide cuts of permanent staff by an increase
of an equal or higher amount of temporary staff
·
Laboratory based
research will always have an important role in the JRC's work. JRC wide,
laboratory support staff levels (AST and equivalent) will reflect the current
situation
·
The number of
staff working on the scientific work programme increases to 70% of all staff,
reducing support staff to 30% (currently, they are 61% Vs 39%)
·
More focus is put
on scientific excellence and excellent scientific staff
·
Projects will
normally have a limited lifetime, and repetitive tasks will be scrutinised
·
The support
infrastructure has to be made more efficient
·
Administrative
procedures will be scrutinised with the aim of simplification
R&D fully supports true transparency through a
direct interaction between management and staff, and during the meeting with
the DG on Monday we clearly communicated our priorities and concerns on some
elements of the draft strategy that all trade unions have had access to since
last week. We also requested improvements to the information flux underlining
the need to continue a constructive and assertive communication. Rather than
only focusing on the process of drafting – which we agree could have been
better handled – we prefer to engage in a constructive dialogue on the content
because this phase of the process will be over in a few weeks, while the
strategy's impact will be lasting.
Once it is approved, the implementation of the
strategy will of course be the critical phase where staff representatives
will be called on to play a major role. Proper management and a culture of
change will be of pivotal importance for its success. Your R&D
representatives are putting their face, name and reputation in the dialogue
with our DG, without hiding behind a trade union logo. Thanks to our
constructive spirit, we believe we are in a good position to fully represent the
interests of all staff.
The
DG yesterday replied in detail to our questions, and we invite you all to
read these comments and will be happy to hear your opinion. To fully understand
these answers, of course the full text is needed: R&D has emphasised the
need to share the document with all staff for comments as soon as possible, and
the DG will shortly do so, as confirmed in the link above. In the meantime, all
R&D Ispra and R&D Seville members are welcome to come to our
secretariat (Bdg. 63 in Ispra - IPTS II° Floor n°43 in Seville) anytime and
read a printout of the draft document.
We appreciate all constructive feedback we receive from
our members, both positive and negative: please engage with us and let us know
what you think!
JRC strategy 2030
A recent open letter of some trade unions was highly critical
of the process led by our Director General towards the development of a JRC
strategy for 2030.
R&D
distanced itself from the tone and content of that letter, which we think
has served only to stir up unnecessary fears amongst staff, without being
constructive in any way.
The first two points highlighted in
the open letter relate to Administrative Services and Site Management, with no
mention of science, research or policy which is the core business of the JRC in
its mission. One can draw one's own conclusions about their priorities.
The timing of the letter was also
inappropriate, considering that the undersigning parties were fully aware that
a document explaining the strategy was to be distributed later the same day to
all trade unions in preparation for a meeting between them and the DG.
The meeting took place this morning
22nd February. The draft JRC strategy document itself will be soon
made available by our DG and we anticipate now some thoughts.
In the draft strategy document, there is much that is a continuation of previous ambitions, much common sense, and much that is reassuring for the future. In primis, is the declaration that the JRC remains as a Commission DG and will cement its central role in the decision making process of all policy DGs.
Indeed, most of the principal points of the Strategy are in
line with the
R&D electoral programme for the Local Staff Committee elections in 2015.
This programme met the approval of a significant fraction of the staff
resulting in R&D Ispra being confirmed as the principle trade union at the
JRC's largest site (also the third largest site of the Commission).
Among the others, we find in the document:- support to scientific excellence
- introduction of a mobility market for staff
- revision of administrative procedures and process streamlining
- focus on core scientific business, with a rebalance of staff resources allocated to scientific activities vs support ones
- a global vision of infrastructure management to ensure most efficient use of resources to support the core business
R&D's concern
However, R&D naturally also has
some concerns about several parts of the document and requested further explanations
and reassurances at today’s meeting with the DG. We had sent a
list of questions in advance, and raised other points as the
discussion developed. The main points queried related to: cancellation of
repetitive work, staff and budget allocation, ratio of permanent and
flexible positions, external access to laboratories, duration of projects. The
DG has offered to create a forum on Connected where our questions – together
with questions from staff – will be answered.
The
outcome of today's meeting and R&D's position
The JRC has been subject to many reorganizations over the
years, and staff is naturally sceptical when a new one is around the corner.
The JRC has also been subject to many existential crises in the past and must
clearly set, explain and execute the essential and valuable service it can
provide for the implementation of the best EU policies. We believe that one
must adapt to survive (c.f. Darwin), rather than following the creationist
approach supporting that everything must remain as it is. The future of the JRC
can only be guaranteed by being truly useful and through using its resources in
the most efficient manner. The meeting has been very productive and we see in
the new strategy a lot of pros and opportunities. A correct implementation of
the general principles declared in the draft document will be crucial for a
positive outcome and a better future for the JRC – we promise that we'll follow
very carefully all the process with the constructive spirit that has always
been our trademark.
G. Selvagio - R&D Ispra
P. Di Pietrogiacomo - R&D Seville
P. Di Pietrogiacomo - R&D Seville
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