Bonum Certa Men Certa

EPO Staff Representatives Not Amused to See an Office That Steals From Staff and Even From Pensioners

Clear and overt abuse of diplomatic immunity

Negotiator Campinos; After 'social dialogue'



Summary: The heist continues; the EPO isn't just a milking cow of Germany but also of EPO officials who keep the 'lid' or the 'cover' on this whole financial instrument, which would enrage member states if they truly understood what's going on

EARLIER today the Central Staff Committee (CSC) of the EPO circulated a letter to colleagues. In it, the CSC basically shared the raw numbers, annotated to explain to staff what was really going on at their employer, which was hoarding loads of money (possibly by granting hundreds of thousands of invalid patents) and then denying access to that money, instead passing it to dodgy accounts where it can be gambled away for somebody's personal benefit. This is corruption. We've covered it before and noted that as per the EPC the EPO isn't supposed to harvest stakeholders' funds like that, let alone divert the money to gambling while punishing staff, even former staff.

"This is corruption.""The actual budget surplus for 2020 came to €348.9m," the CSC said. "The original budget of Chapter 30 - Staff was underspent by €83.2m (5.1%). One main driver: whereas the budget anticipated a 2.5% salary adjustment as of 1 July 2020, the new method resulted in 0.5% salary adjustment effective on 1 January 2021."

Here is the entire one-page publication as simple HTML:

Zentraler Personalausschuss Central Staff Committee Le Comité Central du Personnel

Munich 17.05.2021 sc21058cp – 0.2.1/1.3.2

2020, a year of historic savings on the backs of staff



Dear colleagues,

The budget implementation statement for the 2020 accounting period was recently published in CA/10/21. The impact of the pandemic and how positively it has influenced the budget of the Office is laid clear for all to see. The data provided speaks for itself, as you will see from the excerpts below;

“The actual budget surplus came to €348.9m, 4.2% below 2019, but significantly above the budget figure of €242.2m.” (page 27)

“The original budget of Chapter 30 - Staff was underspent by €83.2m (5.1%), mainly due to the deviation in the number of paid employee-years (PEYs) between budget and actual figures [...] A new salary adjustment method was introduced in 2020. Whereas the budget anticipated a 2.5% salary adjustment as of 1 July 2020, the new method resulted in 0.5% salary adjustment effective 1 January 2021. [...] These were the two main drivers behind the underspend.” (page 36)

“Remuneration of other employees covers mainly interpreter costs related to diverse oral proceedings, mainly opposition and appeal. Given the difficulties related to holding oral proceedings during the coronavirus pandemic, there was an underspend against this article of €5.1m (64.6%).” (page 37)

staff welfare which recorded an underspend of €3.4m (58.4%) owing to a significant reduction in canteen subsidies paid in the year due to the sharp increase in home working in response to the coronavirus pandemic. (page 37)


We highlight that only €4.8m1 was needed for Mr Campinos to extend the benefits of the current Education and Childcare allowances to all staff without affecting negatively anyone. This represents a meagre 1.4% of the €348.9m budget surplus for 2020 and only 5.7% of the -€83.2m savings made on the backs of staff during the Covid-19 pandemic and after the disastrous salary adjustment procedure. In view of the -58% reduction on “staff welfare”, specifically due to the reduction in canteen subsidies, we wonder why it was not decided to use this surplus to keep our caterers afloat across all sites. So much for thanking you for your efforts during the pandemic.

Your Central Staff Committee

___ 1 CA/7/21 (page 17/31): the yearly overall budget for the Education and Childcare allowance is decreased by - €3.7m from €76.6m to €72.9m. The transitional measures are foreseen to cost €62m over 15 years and they will cost €8.5m for the first year. Mr Campinos only needed €4.8m to make the reform to the benefit of all.



"We highlight that only €4.8m was needed for Mr Campinos to extend the benefits of the current Education and Childcare allowances to all staff without affecting negatively anyone," the CSC told staff. "This represents a meagre 1.4% of the €348.9m budget surplus and only 5.7% of the -€83.2m savings made on the backs of staff. So much for thanking you for your efforts during the pandemic."

Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos are basically looting the Office and killing it in the process, granting loads of fake patents like European software patents that stand no chance in court (and no, the UPC isn't happening!), which means that those who will lose billions of euros are those misled into pursuing such European Patents in the first place. A similar thing happened at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Ask all those people who got software patents before Alice/35 U.S.C. €§ 101.

To put it crudely, it's a fake economy. The EPO 'generates' money by giving false hopes to people, raising lots of funds from people who wrongly perceive European Patents to be worth the paper they're on. Only the lawyers will benefit, mostly those who are based around Germany/Munich, stimulating only their own profession and that local economy while lining the pockets of kangaroo courts and corrupt Office officials. More on that shortly ("Part 10: A Faustian Pact?").

Recent Techrights' Posts

Ubuntu Becomes Microsoft GitHub, Based on Decision Made by British Army Officer
You're hopeless, Canonical
Sharing Code and Recipes
It helps explain the triviality of software freedom
How Many Women Has Microsoft's Alex Balabhadra Graveley Already Strangled and Where Does That End?
If you too are a victim of this man and wish to share information, contact us
"We Might Save Somebody's Life"
I follow the example of my father
Gemini Links 16/07/2025: Tmux and OCC25 Working TLS
Links for the day
Reboots Should Never be Necessary
"BUT WHAT ABOUT SECURITY!!"
 
Links 16/07/2025: Chip Bans and Microsoft’s “Digital Escort” Program
Links for the day
Revolving Doors: One Day You're a Judge, the Next Day You're an Attorney Paying Public Officials and Working for Violent and Dangerous Microsoft Employees
how the US justice system works
Slopwatch: Noise, Plagiarism and Even Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt/Fear-mongering/Dramatisation
What are we meant to do to prevent a false association or misleading connotations? Game the LLMs? No. Boycott slopfarms.
Gemini Links 16/07/2025: BaseLibre Numerical System and Simple Web Browsing with TLS
Links for the day
Links 16/07/2025: Fascist Slop Takes "Intelligence" Clothing, New Criminal Case Against MElon
Links for the day
Why I am Suing the Serial Strangler From Microsoft, Alex Balabhadra Graveley, in the UK High Court This Week
Out of respect to the process and to the Court, I shall not share any pertinent details about the case
Links 16/07/2025: China’s Economy Grows Steadily, France Takes Action Regarding Harm to Children by GAFAM and Fentanylware (TikTok)
Links for the day
It is Not About Politics
Beware the people who try to make this about politics
Good Journalism Saves Lives
a shocking number of women die or get seriously hurt every day due to violence from a partner
Recognition of Women's Contributions to Free Software
Being passive is not an option when bad things are happening
Slopfarms Are Going to Perish Because Public Opinion is Changing
Many slopfarms will simply go offline
19 Years of Standing Up for Justice, Equality, and Truth
This week we shall take it up a notch
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 15, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 15, 2025
Links 15/07/2025: LLM Pollution and Pushback in Ukraine
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: xkcd, New Cert, and Alhena Gemlog
Links for the day
Links 15/07/2025: Press Freedom at Risk and New Facebook Blunders
Links for the day
There's Still Hope for the World Wide Web
Let's hope that the trajectory of the Web won't be leading us to over-reliance on Google, nor will it reward worthless slopfarms
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: Smolweb and Alhena 5.1.7
Links for the day
The Danes Want GNU/Linux
David Heinemeier Hansson recently moved to GNU/Linux
Cory Doctorow Explains Why Software Freedom Matters, Whereas "Open Source" Misses the Point and Helps Monopolies
It's a very long article
BillPR (EpsteinGate-Bribed NPR) is Turning Into a Partial Slopfarm that Promotes Slop
"I went on a date with a chatbot!"
Two Weeks Passed Since Latest Large Wave of Microsoft Layoffs, More Expected Next Month
Blaming the debt on "AI" is just self-serving storytelling
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 14, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 14, 2025
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: Gemini "Style Sheets" and Switching From Microsoft GitHub to Codeberg
Links for the day
Coming Soon: Another OSI Scandal, This One Implicating Molly de Blanc
OSI has been fairly quiet lately
Outreachy & Debian pregnancy cluster, Meike Reichle evidence
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Again, "Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People"
Microsoft Lunduke is not trying to "protect" Linux
XBox is Rapidly Turned Into a Slopfarm by Microsoft
Slop isn't about efficiency and saving money
One of the Most Hilarious Things About the Microsoft SLAPPs
It's so ridiculous
Financial Support for the Free Software Foundation or the GNU Project
The FSF has extended until Friday its fund-raising campaign
Illegally Hiding (or Demanding Secrecy Around) Illegal Requests or Attempts at Extortion
unlawful communications like threats
Microsoft's Halloween Documents and systemd, Wayland, Etc.
Maybe one day Wayland will be widespread. Or maybe not.
Gemini Links 14/07/2025: BOFH Archive, Updating Old Palm PDAS, and Nginx vs Slop Bots
Links for the day
Ubuntu is Becoming GAFAM-Like
What does that say about Canonical and Ubuntu?
Slopfarms Which Take Real Articles About GNU/Linux and Turn Them Into Copycats Which Are False
Even before the LLM hype those were quite common
The Firm That Picks on Techrights is Accustomed to Working With Criminals
Techrights never did anything illegal. So why is it being picked on by people who work with criminals?
Microsoft Said the Mass Layoffs Were for "Investment" in "AI", But It's Also Laying Off the "AI" and "Copilot" Staff
Months ago we showed many so-called "AI" people were getting the boot and this time it's the same
DryDeadFish is Dead, Long Live DryDeadFish
We kept checking, hoping it can recover from some temporary technical issue
For Quite Some Time Already Microsoft Attracts Crackpots, Scams, and More
Occasionally we talk about the situation at IBM as there are many parallels
Links 14/07/2025: Chatbots Broken Again, McHire LLM Shows Limits of the Hype
Links for the day
Changing One's Name Won't Change One's Past
People who have earned a bad reputation are not magically "entitled" to reset
People Who Assault Women Are Not Victims of "Distress"
It seems like an American tradition. In a country with almost 50 presidents, not even one was a female.
Slashdot Media Turned Linux Journal Into a Slopfarm and Now Slashdot Actively Promotes Anti-Linux Slopfarms
Yes, "no-nonsense" apparently means actual nonsense
Adoption of Gemini Protocol Still Growing
Gemini Protocol is being obscured by the media - it doesn't help that Google 'hijacked' the word "Gemini" - but people still manage to find out about it, download a client, and use it
Links 14/07/2025: Arresting Photographers, Threats to Revoke US Citizenship Over Criticism
Links for the day
More EPO Leaks on the Way
We hope that Mr. Rowan will actually try to refute what we say and show, not merely point the finger at the messengers
Decommodification is a Corporate Strategy Against Communities
systemd is led by Microsoft and hosted by Microsoft
copyleft.org 'Hijacked' by the People Who Attack the Person Who Created Copyleft
So far there's nothing "tasteless" in copyleft.org, but that can change at any time in the future
Asking People to Take Down Articles and Videos Only Makes These More Popular and "Viral"
If you do something bad, one of the worst things you can possibly do it try to silence those who speak about it
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 13, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 13, 2025
Two-Thirds Towards FSF Goal, Richard Stallman to Give Talks in Europe
There are 67 left before reaching the target
Brett Wilson LLP "Takes it Personal" (Character Assassination, Not Professionalism). Everybody Can See That.
On behalf of violent men
Gemini Links 14/07/2025: Politicised Tech and "Leaving GitHub"
Links for the day