MR. Campinos, a Frenchman, will become the EPO's President in little more than 3 months. This politically-connected former banker* got the job thanks to a lot of help from his old friend, whom he can speak French with (Campinos will be the third Frenchman in this position out of 4 in succession, Brimelow being the only exception). It's also rumoured that Nicolas Sarkozy, who is making the news right now for his alleged crimes, put Battistelli in this position, so there's a chain of lobbying here (for succession). These people are nothing like Alain Pompidou, who was a Frenchman that's actually a scientist and sometimes reasonable with staff (except when portraying them as lazy).
"We expect Battistelli to still hang around the Office as a visitor."The meeting of the Administrative Council of the EPO is ending right about now and we have heard virtually nothing about it, which probably means that nothing is changing (same old horrible mess). The Federation of International Civil Servants' Association (FICSA) too has just noted that nothing is changing for the better, only for the worse. As SUEPO put it some hours ago:
FICSA, the Federation of International Civil Servants' Association is a federated group of 29 staff associations/unions from organizations belonging to the United Nations common system. Eighteen staff associations/unions outside the common system have associate status. Fifteen staff associations/unions are consultative members and 22 Federations of United Nations Staff Associations (FUNSA) are observers.
The Federation of International Civil Servants' Association (FICSA) mentions anew the worrisome situation at the European Patent Office.
European Patent Office (EPO)
56. Unfortunately, nothing changed at the European Patent Office (EPO) in 2017. It has been in the news for over four years now and FICSA has been following developments closely as there are still unresolved, worrisome issues, namely: continuous threats to union and staff representatives by the EPO President, Mr. Battistelli, and violation of workers’ rights. This is now coupled with setting unreachable production objectives which are endangering the health of EPO staff.
57. After having halved the time spent on Staff Representation activities over the past three years, the EPO has in 2017 further curtailed the resources of the Staff Committee. In its extra- ordinary session of 6 December 2017, the ILO Administrative Tribunal (ILOAT) delivered several important judgements, Nos. 3958 and 3960, in which it ordered the immediate reinstatement of a Judge of the Boards of Appeal to his former post, after he had been suspended for three years. The Tribunal further ordered the EPO to pay the Judge costs as well as damages for material and moral injury. No. 3972 concerns the case of a sick EPO staff whose sickness was deliberately ignored by the EPO prior to being dismissed after a disciplinary committee in absentia.
58. The judgements concerning the three dismissed SUEPO officials are likely to be issued by the ILOAT next June/July and end 2018/beginning 2019. Mr. Campinos (PT), current head of EU-IPO in Alicante, will become the next President of the EPO as from 1 July 2018 with the mandate to reinstate social dialogue. It is however too early to have a clear idea of his intentions. Mr. Campinos is known for having close ties to Mr. Battistelli who strongly supported his candidacy.
59. FICSA hopes that the years of chaos will soon be over with the arrival of a new President at EPO respecting the rule of law, the social partners and EPO staff.