The "Alicante Mafia" - Part VII - The Industrial Actions Began Yesterday, Here's Why
The survival of António Campinos is at stake
The EPO's "Alicante Mafia" [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] might not last much longer.
Over the coming days we'll write about what motivates EPO staff to "rise up"; we'll delay a bit some of the coverage regarding drug-related EPO scandals, as strikes and protests take precedence. We'll get to the inside stories sooner or later, maybe in February or in early March. We welcome more inside stories, assuming more people inside the EPO are courageous enough to tell us what they know. We shared tips on how to contact us anonymously (shall that be the desirable route). Two days ago in an online 'meeting' the industrial action plan was approved and "adopted" (as per staff). It formally began the following day (i.e. yesterday) and here's the official publication about it, courtesy of Munich's 'branch' of SUEPO, the EPO's staff union (the acronym stands for Staff Union of the European Patent Office):
INTERNATIONALE GEWERKSCHAFT IM EUROPÄISCHEN PATENTAMT
STAFF UNION OF THE EUROPEAN PATENT OFFICE
UNION SYNDICALE DE L'OFFICE EUROPEEN DES BREVETSOrtssektion München
Local section Munich
Section locale de Munich
19 January 2026
su26003mp – 0.2.1/0.2.2Report on the SUEPO Munich General Assembly of Monday 19 January
Action Plan 2026 adopted to stop the salary erosion of EPO staff
Dear SUEPO members,
Dear Colleagues,The first technical meeting on the new “future orientations on the salary adjustment procedure” took place on 14 January and the Central Staff Committee (CSC) published immediately a report on the meeting. An additional meeting took place on 19 January in the morning to discuss the simulations of the proposed new salary adjustment procedure. In the afternoon, SUEPO Munich held a General Assembly on the topic with its members.
The Office intends to bring “financial sustainability” down to Eurozone (EZ) inflation ± 0.0% without any guarantee of maintenance of purchasing power nor any parallelism with civil servants. In addition, the proposal foresees the introduction of a new “safeguard clause” to prevent adjustments in case EZ inflation is considered too high and a “review clause” to give even less than EZ inflation in three years on.
The simulations over the period 12-year period 2014-2025 show a further loss of purchasing power putting the EPO further down in the benchmark among International Organisations (see the presentation slides below):
• Salary Erosion Procedure: More erosion from 2026 onwards – Time for action
Therefore, SUEPO Munich has proposed an updated industrial action plan to the assembly which adopted the plan.
The plan starts with Work-To-Rule actions as of Tuesday 20 January. Work-To-Rule actions consisting in avoiding overtime, focusing on search or ensuring the best quality by applying thoroughly the EPC in intermediate actions instead of sending an expedited intention to grant. The Administrative Council delegations are particularly sensitive to the number of patents granted for which they receive a share of the renewal fees.
EPO staff worked well and faithfully. Instead of rewarding us for our efforts, the President will continue with the erosion of our salaries and pensions without any financial justification.
It is time to put an end to this policy. Support the SUEPO Munich Action Plan 2026.
SUEPO Munich
There is an allusion there to "presentation slides"; we shall publish those later (and separately).
The staff union cannot speak of Cocainegate, as the administration is super-sensitive about it and already issues authoritarian threats to anybody who dares just mention names of members of the "Alicante Mafia".
We probably should clarify - as before - that we don't oppose patents as a concept, we're proponents of the Rule of Law and that means no patents on algorithms, nature etc. Today's EPO is corrupt, debased, and acts against Europe. █