By Daisy Ayliffe - 10th October 2006
The European Confederation of Independent Trade Unions (CESI) has attacked commissioner Günter Verheugen’s “impertinent” criticism of EU officials.
In a statement on Wednesday, the CESI General Secretary Helmut Müllers said vice president Verheugen should apologise for his recent criticism of EU bureacrats.
“I speak on behalf of the many EU officials whom CESI counts amongst its members when I say that I reject Verheugen's remarks most emphatically,” Müllers said in a statement.
“For independent trade unions, his comments are impertinent and utterly excessive. We expect a clarification and a public apology from Mr Verheugen.”
Last week Verheugen told Sueddeutsche Zeitung that high-ranking EU bureaucrats have gained too much power in the European commission.
"The whole development of the last ten years has brought the civil servants so much power that in the meantime the most important political task of the 25 commissioners is controlling this apparatus,” Verheugen said.
The vice-president said commissioners had to "be extremely careful that the important decisions are taken in their weekly meeting and not by officials among themselves".
Verheugen argued that his drive to cut red-tape across EU legislation, for example, has suffered from resistance from stubborn bureaucrats.
"Some of them think the commissioner will be gone again after five years so he is just a temporary squatter, but I am sticking around."
But trade unionists say the commissioner should accept personal responsibility for any failings in the EU executive.
“If Mr Verheugen has the impression that some EU officials fail to defer to the commissioners in their work, I believe this points rather to a lack of leadership,” the CESI add.
“Incidentally, I would also like to point out that the staff regulations provide for suffi-cient penalties in the event of wrongdoing on the part of officials.”
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