The EPO's Central Staff Committee Presents Evidence That Staff Compensation Lowered While the Office Increases Income by Illegally Granting Invalid Patents
Two months ago: Original European Patent Convention (EPC, 1973), Routinely Violated by the European Patent Office, Now in Geminispace
The EPO does not work for Europe. It serves monopolies, which typically aren't European, and also their law firms, which are horny for more patent lawsuits.
That much should be widely known; there's nothing controversial about merely pointing that out. Under Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos it got so bad that merely talking about it became dangerous and they even SLAPPed bloggers who pointed out corruption (like Microsoft getting a "fast lane" at the EPO). Of course that extends to European software patents - i.e. patents which are both illegal and undesirable - but the EPO grants anyway (to fake "growth" and make more money).
Yesterday we wrote about the General Consultative Committee (GCC) meeting, where staff representation gets to speak to some managers (but not all).
Days ahead of that meeting the following letter was sent to Campinos and Christoph Ernst, who seems responsible for a lot of EPO corruption. These people become millionaires by doing illegal things.
Anyway, from the letter:
European Patent Office
80298 Munich
GermanyCentral Staff Committee
Comité central du personnel
Zentraler Personalausschuss
centralSTCOM@epo.org
Reference: sc25056cl
Date: 03/10/2025
European Patent Office | 80298 MUNICH | GERMANY
To: Mr António Campinos (President of the Office)
Cc: Social Dialogue, Mr Christoph Ernst (Vice-President DG5), Members of the GCCBy email:
To: president@epo.org
Cc: socialdialogue@epo.org, vp5@epo.orgLETTER
Request for postponement of the increased contributions recommended by the Actuarial Study 2025 (GCC/DOC 10/2025)
Dear Mr President,
The Actuarial Study 2025 results have been tabled in the General Consultation Committee (GCC) meeting of 6 October 2025 in document (GCC/DOC 13/2025). As of 1 January 2026, the Office intends to increase the global contribution rate for pensions by +5.7%1 and the healthcare contribution rate by +0.9%2. A third of the increase shall be borne by staff, thereby representing a total increase in contributions from staff of +2.2%.
At the same time, the Office will proceed to the sixth application of the salary adjustment procedure put in place since 2020. The sustainability clause caps the overall growth in salary mass at Eurozone inflation + 0.2% with the value date of 1 July. For 2025, the cap is set at 2.2%. The overall growth in salary mass being a weighted average of EPO sites, some places of employment are expected to have a salary adjustment above the cap and others below the cap.
Indeed, the supporting documents about the salary adjustment for 2025 preliminarily show for Belgium +3.28%, Austria +1.63%, Germany +1.21% and The Netherlands +3.70%. Therefore, should the Office apply the increase in contributions of +2.2% on 1 January 2026, EPO staff in Munich, Berlin and Vienna would see a salary decrease on their payslips.
Back in 2021, when the increase in contributions exceeded the salary adjustment, the Office considered it reasonable, as a social measure, to postpone that increase to the next year.3
______
1 CA/53/25, par. 19
2 CA/53/25, par. 32
3 GCC/DOC 11/2021, par. 14
We believe that, this year, the conditions are also met for postponing the increase in contributions. EPO staff once again worked well and should not be subject to a pay cut.
We are looking forward to receiving a positive answer to our request in the GCC meeting.
Sincerely yours,
Derek Kelly
Chairman of the Central Staff Committee
The report about the meeting is long and it focuses on financial matters. It contains evidence and charts, along with verbal summaries, e.g.:
Conclusion90. Due to cascading the new “risk appetite” from the Financial Study 2023-2024 of Oliver Wyman & Mercer, the AAG was forced to depart from the standard “best estimate” practice. The target is to aim at overfunding at the expense of intergenerational fairness between current and future staff.
91. As a result, the discount rate is historically low and the pension contributions are historically high and largely excessive.
92. When combined with an insufficient adjustment in salary, EPO staff will have a pay cut which is completely unjustified in view of their excellent work.
In relation to the letter above they wrote:
Before the meeting, on 3 October, the CSC had sent a letter to the President, the Chair (VP5) and the GCC members to request a postponement of the increase of contributions in order to avoid that EPO staff in Munich, Berlin and Vienna see a salary decrease on their payslips of January 2026.In the meeting, the Chair gave the floor to PD4.3 who answered that the document containing the date of 1 January 2026 for applying the increase of contributions would not be changed.
There's lots more in this document. █