The Commission has published a working document on the financial and staff implications of the proposal for a Council Decision on Europol.
In this document, the Commission recalls that Europol would an EU agency and financed by the EU Budgets and that its staff would be covered by the EU Staff Regulations and Protocol on Privileges and Immunities.
In this context, the Commission services have defined the financial implications of the establishment of Europol as a Community agency for the Union’s budget, as well as the rules applicable to Europol staff once the decision enters into force.
As far as financial implications are concerned, the proposal for a decision provided for an initial allocation of 82 million EUR from 2010 (see attached financial statement). This amount was however purely indicative and corresponded to a budgetary increase of 6% per year effective as of 2007 on the basis of expenditures on actual human resources. The allocation was also calculated on the basis that the staff would grow gradually to reach a total of 469 persons with an approximate cost of 117 000 EUR/year per person.
The consequences of Europol staff becoming statutory Community staff would be:
1) Europol staff would have to comply with the financial regulations applicable to Community agencies (Regulation (EC) 2343/2002);
2) The financial implications will be different to those that currently apply to Europol staff.
In this context and with a view to facilitating the progress of this file, the Presidency asked the Commission to undertake a comparison of average expenditures relating to Europol staff under the rules currently applicable to Europol and under the rules relating to statutory Community officials.
From this analysis, it can be seen that the annual average cost of a statutory Europol agent would be around 96 000 EUR (without new recruitment expenses or training) and that the actual average annual cost of a member of Europol staff would be around 98 000 EUR.