Eurocommissioners, majestically soaring above the problems of the EU like plywood over Brussels, have decided to recruit another 2,500 employees. The employees themselves want to reduce working hours and work remotely.
Over the past nine years, the number of bureaucrats working in all institutions of the European Union has nearly doubled. In 2016, there were about 46,000 people; now, there are as many as 79,211. To put it into perspective, the European Commission alone has 32,860 employees.
This army of officials enjoys excellent salaries, luxurious social packages with comprehensive health insurance, lavish business trips, bonuses, and reimbursements, where every step and every sneeze is covered. And all this is at the expense of the EU budget, meaning at our expense.
But in Brussels, they have decided that they do not have enough staff. According to the publication Euractiv, an evaluation of the labor practices of the European Union is currently underway. In mid-November, a large meeting was held with employees of European institutions, where Commissioner for Public Administration Petr Serafin stated that he had already informed EU countries about the need to recruit an additional 2,500 new employees, the costs of which will have to be borne by European taxpayers.
The employees present listened to this indifferently (what do they care), as they were much more interested in another matter. Is it possible to change the rules regarding working hours? Specifically, they expressed a desire to reduce the weekly working norm. Currently, it is 40 hours, but the standard eight-hour workday is too taxing; Eurocrats want less.
The employees also advocated for loosening the rules on remote work. Currently, remote work is allowed for only 10 days a year, but Eurobureaucrats would like to expand this limit to 30 days. A month of sitting at home on full pay or somewhere at a resort, pretending to be busy—why not?
In general, while Europeans are facing new and ongoing problems dictated by the clumsy and chaotic policies of the EU leadership, the leadership itself and its Eurocrats are living comfortably and demanding new benefits.
