Like GAFAM, the EPO is Passing the Financial Pains to Staff
New report from the elected staff representation of the EPO:
This new report from the Central Staff Committee at the EPO shows that António Campinos is pocketing money that he - like Benoît Battistelli - might simply gamble away. 'Full swing' for financialization? Perhaps concerns for the future of the EPO, seeing what goes on in the EU and also the persistent violations of laws at the EPO? As we noted a few days ago (twice even), the EPO is operating illegally at this point. There's no legitimacy, set aside the patents (many granted illegally, to be assessed by an illegal kangaroo court). The whole institution is now a "money grab" that has nothing to do with science/technology. As a former EPO executive (Daniel X. Thomas) put it 12 days ago:
The recent decisions of the UPC show at best was lobbyism can achieve.When there is a dispute between two European companies, the overall damage caused by the UPC can be somehow accepted, but when one remembers that barely 30% of granted European patents are held by companies residing in the CMS, the effect of the UPC on European industry in general, and European SMEs in particular, will be extremely deleterious, but not for the pockets of some law firms who pushed the UPC.
The head of the illegal and fake 'court' is himself a booster of European software patents - i.e. patents which are both illegal and undesirable. So the corruption at the UPC goes all the way to the very top! Team UPC even pays some publishers like JUVE for complicity in all this.
Anyway, the new publication from the EPO's staff representatives (sans annexes) talks about financial aspects alone:
Zentraler Personalausschuss
Central Staff Committee
Le Comité Central du Personnel
Munich, 10-02-2025
sc25012cpReport on the GCC meeting of 30 January 2025
Despite the efforts of staff, Mr Campinos does not exhaust
the AC budget for step(s) and promotionsDear Colleagues,
The General Consultative Committee (GCC) met by videoconference on 30 January 2025. The following items were on the agenda:
• Guidelines on Rewards 2025 – for consultation GCC/DOC 01/2025
• Office wide organisational adjustments 2025 – Stream 2 – for information GCC/DOC 02/2025
Mr Campinos reduces the budget envelope approved by the AC for step(s) and promotions by -2.600 Mil. EUR.
From GCC/DOC 01/2025 it is apparent, that also this year, Mr Campinos does not exhaust the budget approved in the Administration Council for rewards and decreases purposefully the envelope for step(s) and promotions by -2.600 mil EUR. Only 60% of eligible staff can be rewarded with step(s) or promotion. The unused budget corresponds to around 700 additional steps which should have been awarded to staff.
In the GCC meeting, we pointed out that there is no financial justification for keeping such a low ceiling. Management answered: “We had this ceiling last year. There is no reason to change. We cannot reward everyone.” (sic!)
GCC/DOC 02/2025 refers to the reorganisation of the Principal Directorate “People” with three directorates named “People something”:
- “People” Planning and Talent Management,
- “People” Engagement and Development,
- “People” Services and Well-being.
If “People” and “Engagement” were really Drivers of the SP2028, Mr Campinos would care about rewarding the high efforts of staff.
The more an organisation speaks about something, the less it actually cares about it.
Read more in our detailed and reasoned opinion and comments in annex.
The Central Staff Committee
Given that Campinos is just a corrupt official who buys elections by bribing the voters, why expect any better from him? He does not need to appease or impress anybody. He's cursing at staff and doing all sorts of illegal things, but since he bribes the voters (the few people whom he needed to appease) they let him get away with everything, so he goes further and further. This is not European democracy; it's an attack on it. It's a corporate takeover by the patent litigation 'industry' and its largest clients, which aren't even European. █