Some bad faith...
The European Commissioner for Administration, the Slovakian Maroš ŠEFČOVIČ, yesterday released a surprising press release presenting the reduction in the remuneration of European civil servants. The beginning of the press release consists of presenting the “dream” situation of Belgian civil servants – benefiting from an increase of 3,6% – to that of European civil servants – suffering a reduction of 1,8%. The poor…-:) If the situation is not happy, this comparison – specified in the first sentence of the press release, in its chapter – is tendentious to say the least.
Because the salary base and the tax rate are largely different. It's as if we were having fun comparing the salary of a professional player from the 1st division to that of a player from the 3rd division. Between the average salary of a European civil servant (I am not talking about contract agents) and a Belgian civil servant, we have, at least, a ratio of approximately 1 to 2. If we talk about net salary, this gap increases further…
Comment: the European Commission, usually relatively cautious in attacking a State, is committing, here, a nominal attack of rare bad faith. Because it forgets 3/4 of the information, settling for simplistic information, bordering on populism. It aims to pit categories of civil servants against others, of citizens against their public function. It's not healthy, it's not right.
