The Court of Auditors, in its opinion 14/2002, approves the principles and values underlying the proposed reform of the Staff Regulations, particularly with respect to the high qualities European Union staff must possess.
The Court considers that additional issues should be dealt with in the proposal, in particular:
- an obligatory annual two-way dialogue in the framework of the periodical report procedure,
- additional education and a broader procedure for filling management vacancies,
- improving certain mechanisms of the invalidity procedure .
On the following issues the Court expresses the reservations set out in the explanatory memorandum above:
- as a flexible retirement scheme is already proposed, "termination-of-service" schemes are not necessary;
- it should be considered whether the amended rules applicable to staff leaving the service without being entitled to an immediate or deferred retirement pension will breach legitimate expectations and therefore a temporary provision could be introduced to avoid legal problems;
- the complaint system concerning alleged irregularities should be organised in a one-line-channel;
- a compensation of overtime worked by officials in grades AST5 to AST11 is not justified;
- the meaning and the scope of the provisions relating to certain requests and complaints submitted to the Director of OLAF or to the European Data Protection Supervisor should be clarified;
- for the invalidity allowance, the same wording should be used in the main text and in the annexes of the amended Staff Regulations.
Having reviewed the Commission's evaluation of the cost of the reform of the Staff Regulations, the Court considers the forecast of a moderate increase in expenditure from 2004 to 2010 reasonable. However, the Commission's forecast of decreasing expenditure in the following years appears to be based
on the assumption that the numbers and characteristics of staff and pensioners will not change over the years.�