Demonstration EPO staff during meeting about re-election president Campinos
June 23, 2022
Staff members of the European Patent Office will demonstrate in front of the Isar building in Munich during the meeting of the Administrative Council on 29 June 2022, where re-election of president António Campinos will be discussed.
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‘Mr Campinos continues the attacks against staff representation and trade unions by banning them from freely using mass-emails on EPO lines and disbanded in 2021 any secretarial support for staff representation. There are also warning signs that staff representation and unions will be hidden further clicks away in the new Intranet.
Since 2012, the EPO is consistently testing the limits of Employment Law and feels only governed by the Tribunal. In this respect, Mr Campinos continues to act along the line of his predecessor.’
Salary adjustment procedure
The protest is also aimed against a financial study of Oliver Wyman & Mercer commissioned by Campinos in 2019, which became the basis for a salary adjustment procedure. According to Suepo, which asked Ernst & Young to study the EPO’s financial situation as well, ‘Ernst & Young found that the 2019 study consistently took an overly conservative approach. It was clear that the EPO had no deficit. (…)
Mr Campinos ignored all arguments and put in place as of July 2020 his new salary adjustment procedure. Instead of the alleged deflation, inflation now materialized at the historical level of +11.1% in Germany since then. Again, it is difficult for a study to be more wrong. At the same time, EPO salaries were adjusted by only +0.5%. (…) In June 2022, the Coordinated Organisations (e.g. OECD, ESA, NATO, CoE) agreed to propose an interim adjustment of +7% for their staff retroactively to 1 March 2022. (…) EPO staff has no protection against high inflation.’
Mobility package
According to Suepo, the “Mobility Package” which will be decided about in the Administrative Council (AC) meeting of 29/30 June 2022, is creating a new lower category of staff called the “Young Professionals” with few rights and low salary, whereas there are generous rewards for national experts and EPO handpicked employees under the secondment policy.
‘The EPO intends to hire bachelors for a three-year program. They will be deprived of allowances such as the dependent and travel allowance, have no right to pension transfer and no salary savings plan. (…)
Contrary to the Young Professionals, the secondment policy will be generous. National experts coming to the EPO will benefit from their national salary paid by the EPO and an allowance of +€5.000 per month. The handful of EPO employees (from high management?) seconded to national offices will continue to earn their full EPO salary without performing any work for the EPO.
The project is conveniently tabled in the Administration Council meeting during which the re-election of Mr Campinos will be discussed. In his time, Mr Battistelli offered free dental care to Council delegates to have their support. Now, Mr Campinos is offering them generous national experts posts.’
Social dialogue
In its announcement, the Suepo also points at the lack of real social dialogue, of which the General Consultative Committee (GCC) of 26 April 2022 serves as an example. The GCC ‘confirmed to be neither an advisory body, nor a consultative body, but rather a promulgation body for rubber-stamping all proposals that come in. On the management’s side, high managers silently attend and vote yes on all the President’s reforms without formulating any reason. On the staff representation side, 99% of the documents either receive a negative opinion or an abstention because legal assessments and benchmarks are missing or the reforms are detrimental to staff without any justification. (…)
The trend deteriorated further in the GCC meeting of 26 April 2022 during which the atmosphere was abysmal. Mr Campinos used foul language throughout, using expletives in various languages, and insulted most of the speakers (…) Meetings with Mr Campinos in which arguments cannot not be exchanged and where questions could not be answered, cannot be considered to have provided a meaningful consultation. (…) On 18 May 2022, a General Assembly took place during which some of the events of said meeting were reported to staff. At the end, a poll was organized during which 96% of the participants voted in favour of the request to publish the recording of the 26 April 2022 GCC.
Mr Campinos rejected this request (…) Mr Campinos has now postponed the approval of the minutes after the AC meeting and his re-election when the delegations look away.’
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June 24, 2025
Why bother?
After "winner takes all" now top managers takes all, the new mission statement of the EPO. Not really a surprise without any supervision, check and balances as it exist within the EU institutions in Bruxelles.
Malfunction
Mr Campinos was elected to restore social peace within the EPO. He seems to clearly have failed to do that. In a reasonably functioning public institution, under such circumstances the deciding body would at least have to provide reasons or re-appointing the person who has not succeeded in their mission. But we are talking about the European Patent Organisation. I expect Mr Campinos to be re-elected, and any demonstration, petition and questions from this blog to be given the silent treatment by the AC. The lack of accountability is one of the major issues of this institution.
Concerned observer
If SUEPO has accurately characterised the key provisions of the “Mobility Package” (CA 32/22), then it is hard to interpret that document as anything other than an attempt by the President to provide himself with a significantly expanded range of "inducements" that he can offer to AC delegations in return for their support. In this respect, the timing of the “Mobility Package” (to be decided at the same AC meeting as the potential renewal of the current President's contract) looks more than a little suspect. Got a shortage of examiners at your national office? No problem, the President can offer you as many fully funded patent examiners as you require! Fancy a break from the routine of your day job? No problem, the President can offer you a cushy secondment to Munich with few responsibilities but very generous remuneration! This is the kind of benefit (or benefit in kind) that, under normal circumstances, civil servants would be required to declare ... and, if they had any role in the regulatory oversight of the benefactor, would almost certainly be obliged to decline. However, we are talking about the EPO here, and so normal rules (even rules governing blatant conflicts of interest) do not apply. Of course, the EPO really ought to have nothing to do with funding the operations of the national offices. Indeed, I rather suspect that those paying the official fees that fund the EPO might be rather cross to learn that the EPO is spending a chunk of its income on activities that have nothing to do with its core mission. On the other hand, one could question whether funding secondments to / from national offices falls within the scope of the EPO's official activities. If not, then this might mean that such activities would not be exempt from national jurisdiction (Art. 3 PPI) or taxes (Art. 4 PPI).
Attentive Observer
The tail has been wagging the dog for much too long and the last two tenants of the 10th floor have been very good at this game. When the EPO, like the EU, was enlarged by countries of Eastern Europe, it did not give itself the means to remain governable. The unanimity rule ruins a proper way of working. A qualified majority should be the rule. This would drastically restrain the wagging by the tail! The move to Haar was opposed by the big countries. The cooperation budget did marvels at the time and still does. Now the BA will move back to town. It shows at best that the move was absolutely unnecessary. Now the tenant of the 10th goes one step further and invites national offices to second staff to the EPO. What a perk! And this all to get a further appointment. What a shame. CA32/22 is like usual full of lovely sounding management buzzwords which are just there to hide reality. With his proposal the present tenant of the 10th floor will eventually kill the EPO, but this is secondary to his private interest. We should also not forget that the quality is deteriorating steadily. It is possible to produce a lot. This however requires proper training. Training time for examiners has been reduced by a third in order to fit the 5 years contracts. The young professional scheme is there to extend the probationary period for a further three years. Who will want to come to the EPO if it is not staff from national offices who will keep their ties with the national security and pension systems. Will the gratification they will get be tax free or not? As they are not staff members it will probably not be tax free. Taxation in Germany is anything but a piece of cake! The silence of institutions like epi in view of the degradation of service, and the constant degradation of staff regulations, which has already occurred and which will continue, is quite deafening, exactly as for the move of the BA to Haar! When will those people realise that they are sawing the branch on which they are sitting? What perspective is offered to the new entrants in the profession of representative?