EPO Violates Laws to Profit More From Invalid Patents, Then Cuts the Budget Allocated to Staff

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Dec 19, 2025,
updated Dec 19, 2025

2022: The EPO Bubble — Part XII — The Shape of Things to Come?

Hours ago:

The Central Staff Committee at the EPO has circulated a document to make staff aware of significant changes that impact staff. In addition to salary reductions and Benoît Battistelli ending most permanent employment contracts we now see António Campinos of the "Mafia" taking away what was already promised to staff. It's the same staff that's forced to grant European software patents - i.e. patents which are both illegal and undesirable - in order to fake 'growth' (for a cocaine addict to then publicly boast about).

Quoting the Central Staff Committee:

Dear Colleagues,

In 1985 the Administrative Council approved the regulations "for the grant of the home loans to permanent employees of the EPO" (CA/D 6/85). Circular No. 244 (of 1997) provides the criteria for the granting of home loans for five defined priorities.

The budget for home loans is currently not exhausted. The staff representation therefore expected the Office to increase eligibility to fixed-term contracts or to at least maintain the budget until the first batches of fixed-term contracts become permanent.

Instead, as of next year, the Office intends to deal only on with first priority applications, i.e. “loans to finance a main residence at the place of employment" for permanent employees and to reduce the budget from 16.8 million to 5 million Euro.

Well, take a look at this paper issued less than a day ago. It has more background and more details:

Zentraler Personalausschuss
Central Staff Committee
Le Comité Central du Personnel

Munich, 18-12-2025
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Home Loans

Trimming the budget instead of increasing eligibility?

In 1985 the Administrative Council approved the regulations ‘for the grant of the home loans to permanent employees of the EPO’ (CA/D 6/85). Since then, Article 1(1) of the Home loans regulations allow “any permanent member of the EPO having active status to apply for a Home loan”. Circular No. 244 (of 1997) provides the criteria for the granting of home loans for five defined priorities.

It is worth noting that presently the Home loans scheme (CA/10/24) is fully financed by the interests and the re-payments of the loans already accorded in the past. As such there is no continuous cost for the Office.

The issue
For the last 20–30 years the Home loans budget (16.8 million Euro) was fully exhausted by the home loan application of staff falling in the first priority (“loans to finance a main residence at the place of employment”). However, staff are only eligible for a home loan if they have a permanent contract. Therefore, since fixed-term contracts were introduced for all in 2018, the number of first priority applications has dropped significantly. If there is budget remaining after all first priority applications have been granted in September of a given year, the Home loans committee can assess lower priority applications and this has recently (last 2-3 years) become possible. However, presently the Administration has encountered problems in approving Home loans for staff falling in the second priority: “loans to finance a retirement residence” outside the host states (DE, NL or AT).

For instance, in some of the Member States (not the host states) ‘Ownership and Land registry’ may be difficult to obtain or are not existent. Without a clear security the Office cannot accord a loan. The solution that the Office applied was to ask the staff to provide a security on a property in one of the host states (NL, DE or AT). This is understandable and we agree with this procedure.

Office new decision
However, as of next year, the Office unilaterally decided not to deal with loans in other priority than the first. Hence, not only staff won’t be supported to purchase a retirement property in a chosen member state while even providing a security (collateral) in NL, DE or AT, they will also not be supported to buy any retirement property in any other Member States but the host states.

In order to avoid legal challenges from staff, the Office’s decision is to lower the budget from 16.8 million Euro to 5 million Euro so that Home loans applications from staff in other priority than the first can easily be declined due to lack of budget and not due to lack of capacity in the Human Resources (HR) department to deal with other priorities. Presently, there are merely two staff

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members dealing with Home loans (one is based in TH and the other in MU). Such a reduced budget might only suffice for first priority loans from now on.

This proposal is an unfair decision for all staff, it goes against the Council decision CA/D 6/85 and it favours the local host countries.

Administrative Council (AC)
Noticing that the above problems are solvable the Office introduced another reason for lowering the budget. The new reason is that the AC might ask why the 16.8 million euro earmarked for the Home loans have not been exhausted.

We believe this not to be an issue, since the Home loans budget has never been questioned as it is self-financed. Therefore, there is no issue with costing the Office a single euro. Also, once the budget is lower the Office will have to go back to the AC to increase it when needed. We remind that not long ago, the staff had to wait up to two years to be able to receive a loan. The Office never asked to increase the budget then, what are the chances that the Office will ask now or that that the AC will agree to increase the Home loans budget for the benefit of the staff?

Therefore, it is our belief that since the AC has no issues with the Home loans budget then there is no necessity for capping it. The Human Resources (HR) Department should deal with the priorities as laid down in the present CA/D 6/85 and Circular No. 244 and not create issues where there are none.

We also suggest that, instead of significantly reducing the budget, the Office should extend the eligibility of home loans for our colleagues on fixed-term contracts. This will exhaust the present budget. In addition, many of the colleagues currently holding fix-term contracts will be punished again. Once the conversion to a permanent post is confirmed and they will be finally eligible to request a home loan, the budget might not be available. The first fixed-term contract staff since 2018 are to be confirmed beginning of next year.

Finally, the average age of EPO staff is over 50 years (50.2 in 2024). With the present rules, staff above 50 years finally fulfil the criteria to request a home loan for a retirement home. Exactly at the time when a large number of EPO staff is planning retirement, the Office intends to reduce the budget so that the loans can be refused due to lack of budget. We would like to stress once more that the entire scheme is fully financed from re-payments and interests. As such there is no obvious reason to reduce the budget.

Sincerely yours,

The Central Staff Committee

How much more can the EPO's staff bear and tolerate before strikes or similar industrial actions are embraced by everybody? "The Mafia" at the EPO has been boiling the frog for over a decade already. It also blackmailed media that spoke about it. "The Mafia" operates as if Bavaria is part of Russia. █