WHEN António Campinos was parachuted into the EPO by his mate Benoît Battistelli, serving in a role he was not qualified to fill, Campinos reportedly spared not much time. He told Ion Brumme he would be better off leaving; remember that Battistelli attacked Brumme and the EPO was forced to reinstate Brumme only years later when ILOAT finally delivered a much-needed ruling.
European Patent Office 80298 Munich Germany
Local Staff Committee Munich Comité local du personnel de Munich Ãârtlicher Personalausschuss München
Email: mnstcom@epo.org
Date: 29.03.2023 sc23010ml
European Patent Office | LSC Munich | GERMANY
President of the EPO Mr António Campinos via email PRESIDENT@epo.org
OPEN LETTER Subject: Deutschlandticket – Environmental sustainability
Dear Mr. President,
The yearly environmental report of 2021, section 5.9 “Employee commuting and teleworking”, recites that “[i]t is important that, while improving our approach in estimating category 7 emissions, we will continue to incentivise the use of public transport and bicycles for staff travelling to our premises.”
In our opinion, there is a good chance to achieve that now in Germany, with the introduction in May of the new “Deutschlandticket”. This ticket will cost €49 per month and be valid on local transport in the whole of Germany, thus in both Munich and Berlin. There is an offer for employers offering this ticket as a “JobTicket”: if the employer supports this ticket by at least 25%, the price is reduced by 5% so that the price of the Deutschlandticket for employees is at most €34.50.
You have already subsidised the use of e-cars for EPO employees (and their families). By also subsiding the Deutschlandticket the Office can show that it does not neglect public transportation as a viable alternative to individual transportation when trying to limit the global environmental footprint of employees. To this end, we propose that the Office considers financially supporting the purchase of these tickets by staff up to a 100% refund.
For our part we strongly recommend that our colleagues be encouraged to use this ticket to travel to work.
With kind regards, Ion Brumme Vice-Chair of the Local Staff Committee Munich City, Haar und Brussels