Some bad faith...
The European Commissioner in charge of Administration, the Slovak Maroš ŠEFČOVIČ, sent out an astonishing press release yesterday presenting the reduction in the salaries of European civil servants. The start of the press release consists of presenting the "dream" situation of Belgian civil servants - benefiting from a 3,6% increase - to that of European civil servants - suffering a 1,8% drop. The poor...-:) If the situation is not happy, this comparison - specified from the first sentence of the press release, in its chapô - is to say the least tendentious.
Because the wage base and the tax rate are largely different. It's like having fun comparing the salary of a professional 1st division player to that of a 3rd division player. Between the average salary of a European civil servant (I am not talking about contract agents) and a Belgian civil servant, we have, at a minimum, a ratio of approximately 1 to 2. If we talk about net salary, this gap increases even more…
Comment: the European Commission, usually relatively cautious in attacking a State, is here committing a nominal attack, in rare bad faith. Because it forgets 3/4 of the information, to content itself with simplistic information, bordering on populism. It aims to pit categories of civil servants against others, of citizens against their public service. It's not healthy, it's not right.
