A Week Ahead of Next EPO Strike the Staff Representatives Show the Administrative Council That the Office Lost the Best Staff, It's No Longer Attractive
It's now only (or increasingly) attractive to people from poor countries because, to them, EPO salaries are still acceptable
Today, hours after planning the next industrial actions (including strikes), the Central Staff Committee is disseminating information to colleagues about a letter sent to the overseeing body, which in practice oversees nothing and merely approves proposals sent from cocaine addicts and people who cover up for cocaine addicts (experience and skills don't matter).
This is the message circulated regarding the open letter to the Administrative Council:
Dear Colleagues,The EPO is in an excellent financial situation thanks to the extraordinary efforts of EPO staff.
In the context of the review of the salary adjustment procedure for the period 2026-2031, EPO staff was expecting the Organisation to fulfil the principle of reversibility to the former underlying methodology and that the President would fulfil his promise that “[t]here is ?no desire to cut staff purchasing power or impose unnecessary savings”.
Instead, the proposed orientations on the new salary adjustment procedure plan a further erosion of EPO salaries and benefits, estimated at –1% per year below the evolution of costs of living according to the simulations over the period 2014–2025 provided by the Office. The proposed orientations again bear significant legal risks.
First, the financial implications show additional savings of 1.4B€ on top of the originally planned 2B€ for a total of 3.4B€ savings without any financial justification. Second, the proposal abolishes the historical principle of parallelism with civil servants (i.e. specific indicator) reflecting wage inflation. Third, in the proposed adjustment formula the reference salary scales in Belgium are not linked to anything reflecting the evolution of the prices of goods and services at the reference country such as national inflation (HICP BE). Therefore, the proposal cannot maintain purchasing power in any place of employment.
On 6 March 2026, the Central Staff Committee (CSC) sent an open letter to the Administrative Council to address i.a. these legal risks and the impact on recruitment and attractivity.
From the letter dated 5 days ago:
European Patent Office
80298 Munich
GermanyCentral Staff Committee
Comité central du personnel
Zentraler PersonalausschusscentralSTCOM@epo.org
Reference: sc26021cl
Date: 06/03/2025
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.orgOPEN LETTER
Orientations on the new salary adjustment procedure (CA/24/26)
Dear Members of the Delegations in the Administrative Council,
The Strategic Plan 2023 aimed at securing long-term sustainability1 and raising financial awareness among staff based on the Financial Study of 2019 by Oliver Wyman & Mercer. These consultants 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€2. The Bundle of Financial Measures3 opted for a fixed value of Eurozone inflation +0.2% as the measure intensity for the salary adjustment procedure. The Actuarial Advisory Group consequently revised their assumptions of salary increases at this same value.
However, the services of the President drafted an ill-designed new salary adjustment procedure in 2020 including a “sustainability clause” capping at Eurozone inflation +0.2% combined with exotic mechanisms of a carry-forward pool and periodical settlement seen in no other International Organisation. The Appeals Committee of the EPO unanimously considered the reform to be flawed. Consequently, the EPO had to seek advice from external legal consultants on how the Tribunal would finally rule on the matter and put in place a 2B€ buffer in the EPO Treasury Investment Fund (EPOTIF) to cater for legal risks.
_____
1 Strategic Plan 2023, Goal 5
2 CA/83/19, page 4
3 CA/18/20, par. 56
The poor design caused, over the 6-year period 2020–2025, an erroneous implementation at Eurozone inflation –0.2% and led to savings of 1.25 B€4 on liabilities in 6 years out of 2B€ planned in 20 years5 (making savings twice as fast as planned)6. The evolution of the salaries of EPO staff now lags considerably behind the costs of living and national inflation7 in all places of employment 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.
The latest Financial Study 202310 considered that the identified financial gap was entirely covered and found a coverage surplus of 4.2B€. In 2025, the EPO financial situation continues to be excellent. The Budget 2026 foresees operating surplus of 643 M€11. The pension schemes were already fully covered at 100.3%12 at the end of 2024, with the Reserve Funds for Pensions and Social Security (RFPSS) having outstanding returns of 9.7% in 202513. The RFPSS market value is now at 14.99 B€14 and the EPOTIF value at 5.54 B€15. In total, the funds are 8.35 B€ higher than the forecast16.
Therefore, in the context of the review of the salary adjustment procedure, EPO staff was expecting the Organisation to fulfil the principle of reversibility to the former underlying methodology17 and that the President would fulfil his promise that “[t]here is ?no desire to cut staff purchasing power or impose unnecessary savings”.
Instead, the proposed orientations on the new salary adjustment procedure plan a further erosion of EPO salaries and benefits, estimated at –1% per year below the evolution of costs of living according to the simulations over the period 2014–2025 provided by the Office. The proposed orientations again bear significant legal risks.
First, the financial implications show additional savings of 1.4B€ on top of the originally planned 2B€ for a total of 3.4B€ savings. In view of the lack of financial justification, the EPO would breach the Tribunal’s jurisprudence which states that “the goal of achieving savings does not in itself constitute a valid reason for depriving staff of a salary adjustment to which they are entitled.”18
Second, the proposal abolishes the historical principle of parallelism with civil servants (i.e. specific indicator) reflecting wage inflation. Both the European Union institutions and the Coordinated Organisations involve at least an equivalent to the specific indicator in their remuneration policies.
Third, in the proposed adjustment formula the reference salary scales in Belgium are not linked to anything reflecting the evolution of the prices of goods and services at the reference country such as national inflation (HICP BE). Therefore, the proposal cannot maintain purchasing power in any
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4 CA/86/25, par. 6
5 CA/86/25, par. 6
6 2 B€ / 20 * 6 = 0.6 B€
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/23/24, page 5
11 CA/50/25, page 10
12 CA/52/25, par. 48
13 RFPSS/SB 60/25
14 RFPSS/SB 8/26
15 CA/F 3/26
16 CA/83/19, page 92 : Base 2 RFPSS forecast 2025 = 9.20 B€ and EPOTIF forecast 2025 = 2.98 B€
17 “Bundle of measures for the period 2020 – 2038”, CA/18/20
18 Comments on GCC/DOC 23/2025, par. 63
place of employment even after strictly applying the respective parity coefficient. The annual compensations in cash for local inflation are no substitute to a salary adjustment as they do not involve any compound or cumulative effect and compensate only for a single year of loss.
Legal risks will cause again financial risks. No lessons seem to have been learnt from the past as the President has entrusted again the same services in designing a new salary adjustment procedure that again has no equivalent among International Organisations. The historical underlying methodology was applied since 1977 and never led to litigation as seen since the 2020 reform.
Finally, the attractivity of the Office will inevitably continue to suffer. As an International Organisation, the EPO should be able to recruit from all of its member states, but that is not currently the case. Over the past 15 years19 the nationality profile of EPO staff has undergone a structural shift. While Germany and France still together account for roughly 45% of staff and remain broadly stable, recruitment from the rest of Western Europe and the Nordic countries has fallen sharply, with the proportion of British staff falling by –42% and Dutch by one third (see Annex). The proportion of Swiss staff has fallen by 38% to less than 0.8% of EPO staff, although Switzerland scores third in number of applications among EPC contracting states and lead country by patents per capita. Employees should be recruited ”on the broadest possible geographical basis, from among nationals of the Contracting States”.20 Apparently, the current salary adjustment procedure has already led to a paradigm shift that is now to be further manifested. If current employment conditions continue, the trend suggests a further narrowing of the recruitment pool, with potential long-term implications for diversity of experience, competition for talent, and the Office’s ability to attract highly specialised candidates from all member states.
Reverting to the historical underlying methodology will not reverse the achieved results. The achieved savings are actually calculated based on the difference with the underlying methodology. They can only be neutralized by going above the underlying methodology which would not be the case.
Sincerely yours,
Derek Kelly
Chairman of the Central Staff Committee_______
19 see Annex
20 Article 5 ServRegs
Annex:
Maybe to avoid seeming "racist" they only show a part of the full picture.
Here is the full thing or the occluded part:
EPO nationalities do matter because they help indicate how attractive a workplace the EPO used to be and ultimately became after Battistelli (2010), the "corruption years".
Around 2014 EPO workers kept comparing Battistelli's EPO to "Balkans" or "Balkan standards". That vision has since then materialised. █