Administrative Council to deliberate EPO’s employment plan
The European Patent Office’s (EPO) supervisory body, the Administrative Council (AC), will deliberate an employment proposal put forward by EPO president Benoît Battistelli to recruit staff on renewable contracts of five years in March.
Battistelli and Elodie Bergot, principal director of human resources, added the motion to discuss permanent employment at the EPO during a budget and finance committee meeting in October last year.
At the time, a spokesperson for the EPO said that the office is in a “unique situation” with 97% of its staff hired on a permanent basis.
A first discussion of the proposal, which is called the “Modernisation of the employment framework of the EPO”, took place during the AC’s meeting in December.
The proposal has since been amended.
One of the changes concerns the introduction of article 53(1)(f) of the EPO’s Service Regulations, which reads:
“Without prejudice to the expiry of a fixed-term appointment in the same circumstances, the appointing authority may decide to terminate the service of an employee: ... (f) if the exigencies of the service require abolition of their post or a reduction of staff.”
The EPO-Flier team, a group that “wants to provide staff with uncensored, independent information at times of social conflict”, claimed that the draft reform would put an end to permanent employment at the EPO.
“We fear that the first victims will be the Directorate-General 1 directors who have been made redundant and put on specially created posts,” said the team, in a flier.
Speaking to WIPR, an EPO spokesperson said that the proposed approach aims to achieve a greater balance between permanent and temporary staff to levels comparable to similar international and European institutions.
They added: “However, there is no proposal and no intention whatsoever to abandon the principle of permanent employment at the EPO.”
The AC meeting is taking place in Munich on March 21 and 22.
Robert Sackin, partner at Reddie & Grose, said that the proposal looks like yet another plan that will only make it harder to attract people to join the already under-resourced EPO as examiners.
“The people the EPO want are highly skilled and are in demand in other jobs that offer job security and consistent, fair employment practices,” he added.
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