Open Letter to the Administrative Council of the EPO Calls For Action as Salaries Decrease (Just Like Patent Validity)

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Dec 08, 2025

Related: Is the Second-Largest Institution in Europe (EPO) Gradually Becoming More Like a Sweatshop?

The Central Staff Committee of the EPO has circulated or spread to staff a letter that it sent - as can you - to National Delegates at the EPO. It happened last week. They were very much complicit and participated in the abuses of Benoît Battistelli. Now they do the same for António Campinos and some of them are the very same individuals.

Today's letter to staff says:

Dear Colleagues,

The EPO is in an excellent financial situation thanks to the extraordinary efforts of EPO staff.

In the Patent Grant Process, productivity has increased by +4.7% in 2024. The pension schemes are fully covered at 100.3% and staff contributions will increase in 2025 by a +1.9 pp to meet the “risk appetite” of the Council. The salary adjustment as of January 2026 will be insufficient to cover the increase in staff contributions to social security for most staff and lead to a net decrease of their salaries.

The evolution of the salaries of EPO staff now lags considerably behind the costs of living in all places of employment and national inflation resulting in an erosion of purchasing power for all EPO staff and pensioners.

Back in 2019, Oliver Wyman & Mercer had identified in the chosen Base 2 scenario a financial gap of 3.8 B€ with an additional 2 B€ risk buffer amounting to a target coverage gap of 5.8 B€. Over the period 2020–2025, the cap on the salary adjustments has saved 1.25 B€ on liabilities, namely twice more than expected in 6 years. The RFPSS market value is now at 14.68 B€ and the EPOTIF value at 5.28 B€. In total, the funds are 7.78 B€ higher than the forecast. Instead of a gap, there is now a very large surplus.

EPO staff provided more than the required shared effort to ensure the sustainability of the Organisation. There is no justification for additional savings.

On 4 December 2025, the Central Staff Committee (CSC) sent an open letter to the Administrative Council to stress that EPO staff deserves to have again a salary adjustment procedure in line with the legal standards of the Tribunal by respecting the principles of purchasing parity and the parallelism with national civil servants.

Here is the open letter that they speak of:

European Patent Office
80298 Munich
Germany

Central Staff Committee
Comité central du personnel
Zentraler Personalausschuss

centralSTCOM@epo.org

Reference: sc25076cl

Date: 04/12/2025

European Patent Office | 80298 MUNICH | GERMANY

To: Members of the Delegations in the Administrative Council
Cc: Mr António Campinos (President of the Office)

By email:
To: council@epo.org
Cc: president@epo.org

OPEN LETTER

Erosion of salaries at the EPO

Dear Members of the Delegations in the Administrative Council,

The EPO is in an excellent financial situation thanks to the extraordinary efforts of EPO staff.

In the Patent Grant Process, productivity has increased by +4.7% in 2024¹. The pension schemes are fully covered at 100.3%² and staff contributions will increase in 2025 by a +1.9 pp³ to meet the “risk appetite” of the Council. The salary adjustment as of January 2026⁴ will be insufficient to cover the increase in staff contributions to social security⁵ for most staff and lead to a net decrease of their salaries.

The Financial Study 2019 of Oliver Wyman & Mercer assumed a development of EPO salaries at Eurozone inflation +0.5% and recommended to cap salaries at Eurozone +0.2%⁶. The review of the salary adjustment procedure over the period 2020–2025 shows an actual implementation resulting in Eurozone – 0.2%, thus a difference of –0.7 pp. per year. The salary adjustments of EPO staff were therefore yearly cut more than planned.

_________

¹ CA/45/25, par. 9

² CA/52/25, par. 48

³ CA/53/25, pension contribution rate (37.8% – 32.1%) / 3 = 1.9 pp

⁴ CA/76/25, adjustment in Germany +1.21%, The Netherlands +3.70% and Austria +1.63%

⁵ CA/76/25, healthcare contribution rate (10.5% – 9.6%) / 3 = 0.3 pp, with pensions 1.9 + 0.3 = 2.2 pp

⁶ CA/18/20, par. 56

---

The evolution of the salaries of EPO staff now lags considerably behind the costs of living in all places of employment and national inflation⁷ resulting in an erosion of purchasing power for all EPO staff and pensioners. The EPO results also score far below the benchmark in comparison with the Coordinated Organisations⁸ and the European Union Institutions⁹.

Back in 2019, Oliver Wyman & Mercer had identified in the chosen Base 2 scenario a financial gap of 3.8 B€ with an additional 2 B€ risk buffer amounting to a target coverage gap of 5.8 B€¹⁰. Over the period 2020–2025, the cap on the salary adjustments has saved 1.25 B€¹¹ on liabilities, namely twice more than expected in 6 years. The RFPSS market value is now at 14.68 B€¹² and the EPOTIF value at 5.28 B€¹³. In total, the funds are 7.78 B€ higher than the forecast¹⁴. Instead of a gap, there is now a very large surplus.

EPO staff provided more than the required shared effort to ensure the sustainability of the Organisation. There is no justification for additional savings.

EPO staff deserves to have again a salary adjustment procedure in line with the legal standards of the Tribunal by respecting the principles of purchasing parity and the parallelism with national civil servants.

Continuing the erosion of salaries of EPO staff puts at risk staff engagement, business continuity and social peace.

Sincerely yours,

Derek Kelly
Chairman of the Central Staff Committee

_________

⁷ CA/79/25, par. 40: –4.2 pp behind in Germany, –6.8 pp in the Netherlands and –10.1 pp in Austria

⁸ CA/79/25, par. 46: –7.0 pp behind in Germany, –4.8 pp in the Netherlands, –3.8 pp in Austria

⁹ CA/79/25, par. 46: –7.7 pp behind in Germany, –6.3 pp in the Netherlands, –7.1 pp in Austria

¹⁰ CA/83/19, page 4

¹¹ CA/86/25, par. 6

¹² RFPSS/SB 56/25, page 2

¹³ CA/F 27/25, page 2

¹⁴ CA/83/19, page 92 : Base 2 RFPSS forecast 2025 = 9.20 B€ and EPOTIF forecast 2025 = 2.98 B€

For people who don't work for the EPO there are many more things to complain about.

We have a plan for the next few days. Some of that relates to EPO Cocainegate, which isn't going away any time soon.

"Excellent," one reader said, "I really hope that *this time* the mainstream media gets around to picking this up. I'm also not sure why the whackdoodles aren't all over the EPO either as they are clamoring for defunding universities in general because of drug rumors of a few execs at a few universities. Actually that clamoring is fed by the Kremlin. But it could be used to an advantage (maybe)..."

It is usually the EPO management and Team UPC that leverage the Kremlin for their propaganda (calling critics something something... Russia). We call that... Reductio ad Musciovia/Muscovy/absurdum. Just a political weapon of theirs.

Based on what I heard and spoke about with journalists, they accept there is a substance abuse problem at the EPO's management. It's just that they (or their superiors) are afraid/reluctant to publish anything about it.

This means that the media is yet another problem. █