Brussels Sprouts

Jose Manuel Borroso - the President of the EU Commission - has been in the news recently for poking his nose into the various 'ifs, buts and maybes' about Scotland's planned referendum on independence in 2014.

But there is another side to this gentleman which is laid bare by the latest edition of Private Eye - in its regular column about the worst excesses of the European Union.

BRUSSELS SPROUTS

While member states row over cuts to the EU's 89 billion Euro budget, the battle between them and the European Commission over the bloated salaries of the EU's civil servants looks set to rumble on.

Despite continually refusing pay cuts and legal challenges in the European Court of Justice (ECJ), chairman of the Federation of European Civil Servants Pierre-Philippe Bacri has now threatened strikes to block future summits if their pay demands are not met.

Since the EU's 55,000 or so civil servants enjoy an average salary of 18,000-30,000 Euros a month, with additional allowances of some 3,000 Euros, another 10,000 Euros for three years when they leave, extensive holidays and a 70 per cent of salary pension while the rest of Europe suffers savage jobs and pension cuts and are losing their homes, they clearly live in cloud cuckoo land.

After EU civil servants refused the demand of the European Council (which assembles the leaders of the nation states), to cut their 3.8 per cent pay rise two years ago, the council challenged them in the ECJ but lost after the court found that the council had "exceeded the powers conferred on it by staff regulations" (a predictable finding since the judges themselves would have been included in the cuts). The rise cost taxpayers an estimated 72.5 million Euros.  

The following year the commission again refused member states' requests for pay freezes (although member states had frozen the pay of their own civil servants), proposing a 1.7 per cent salary rise instead.

The council then said it would challenge the way the commission reviewed staff pay in the ECJ, while staff unions filed counter-suits at the ECJ against the council decision.

More to follow in cloud cuckoo land as the Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso continues to demand an increase from 56 billion Euros to 63 billion Euros in the administrative budget while the UK, Germany and the Netherlands demand cuts." 

I think it would be just fine if the Commission President - Jose Manuel Barroso - put his own house in order before giving free advice on Scotland's future relations with Europe.

Because the way this chap is carrying on - he must be a recruiting sergeant for UKIP.