EPO Staff Representation Speaks of This Week's Discussion With the EPO's Budget and Finance Committee (BFC) Amid Mass Strikes
The impact of strikes, which the media is intentionally not covering:
The above printed handout puts things in perspective in a way people can absorb quickly, using visuals rather than text alone. It's a form of infographic; as the Central Staff Committee put it yesterday: "Yesterday and today at the Budget and Finance Committee (BFC), the administration and delegates discussed the proposed new salary adjustment method, and Staff Representation made sure that the scale of the growing social unrest at the Office was properly understood with their intervention accompanied by this printed handout."
The Central Staff Committee's outline (prepared in a rush) or the "flash report" says more:
Zentraler Personalausschuss
Central Staff Committee
Le Comité Central du PersonnelMunich, 21-05-2026
sc26035cpFlash update from the Budget and Finance Committee of 20 and 21 May 2026
Dear Colleagues,
Yesterday and today at the Budget and Finance Committee (BFC), the administration and delegates discussed the proposed new salary adjustment method, and Staff Representation made sure that the scale of the growing social unrest at the Office was properly understood.
When introducing the topic, VP4 repeatedly emphasised the importance of financial sustainability of the Office – empty words that now seem to be considered enough to justify any cut proposed by the administration, and even with over €20 billion in reserves. The simplicity of the method was also stressed, illustrated with a grossly oversimplified example that obscures all the complexity and legal-flaws still remaining in the proposed method.1
As at the AC meeting in March, the delegations, for the most part, expressed agreement with the proposal of the Office, bought into the fallacy that the method is now simplified, and expressed thanks for the “improvement” to the proposal consisting of the high-inflation clause. The German delegate, while still insistent that further cuts are necessary, also expressed interest in the industrial action, the proposal from SUEPO and requested that it still be considered. The Belgian and Dutch delegates asked the Office how staff opinions had been taken into account.
In our intervention, we focussed on the industrial actions and their impact. We distributed another handout on the social unrest, and explained that we had now entered a regime of rolling strikes not seen in over 10 years at the Office. The latter in stark contrast to the mandate of the President to restore social peace. We emphasised that every single working day is available for staff to strike, and that the cumulative monthly strike participations is growing. We warned that if staff continue to be ignored, the industrial actions may continue through the summer, until the end of the year, or even beyond.
We noted the stark lack of response of the President to the very flexible proposal shared by SUEPO, and that he had only offered a single meeting to discuss the SAP in over four months of escalating industrial action, to which he came empty handed.
We asked the delegates to consider whether this was really worth it. Productivity had been increasing at a pace even above the plan, and based on the performance in the first four months of the year, a downturn to levels lower than those of two years ago can be expected. The number of grants for the first third of the year is 23% lower than plan, which will have a significant impact on the income for the national offices. Production is now over
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1 Currently above 40% of the cases at the ILOAT originate from the EPO, which undermines the timely access to justice for all International Organizations served by the Tribunal. The current reform is expected to strain further an already stressed legal system.
10k products behind the target, amounting to 7% of the plan to date. We closed by asking the delegates to urge the President to come to the negotiation table and find a way out of the industrial actions.
In response, VP4 acknowledged that over 10,000 participations in the strike had been registered and that 36% of staff have already participated at least once in the strikes. VP1 additionally mentioned that in addition to strike days, work-to-rule measures are affecting publication output and openly recognised that staff are slowing publications because member states depend financially on grants. Despite attempts by the administration to minimise the impact, the Office also confirmed that the effects will continue into next year due to the 6-month delay in publications, and that the scale of the disruption was increase if the unrest persists.
The delegates were then asked to give their opinion on the salary adjustment proposal. The result of the vote was 36 delegations giving a positive opinion, 1 giving a negative opinion, 1 abstention, and 1 absent.
The message from staff remains clear: eroding staff benefits will erode staff commitment. The longer meaningful negotiations are refused, the more the productivity culture and will to go the extra mile that previously drove the Office’s continuous efficiency gains will continue to decline. Staff are demonstrating that they are no longer willing to absorb unnecessary and unjustified cuts in silence while the Office accumulates ever larger financial surpluses.
Kind regards,
Your Central Staff Committee
We will say more about the industrial actions and unrest in the coming days. █