Pressure is growing on the European Commission to overhaul Brussels staffing regulations that leave overseas EU leaving embassies and delegations empty for "many months" a year.
Generous holiday and flexitime are also topped up with two weeks off for "professional training in Brussels", meaning that overseas diplomats, representing 60 per cent of the EU's foreign service, can be out of the office for 19 weeks, nearly five working months, a year.
On top of that, additional "special leave" entitlements mean that diplomats working in 30 EU delegations in the Far-east, Asia and Africa can have their desks unfilled for between 21 to 24 weeks, up to half the working year due to time-off for officials.
This group of EU officials are also entitled to "two days travelling time and a paid business-class journey to Brussels or Phuket for the official and his/her family".
A "working document" produced by Ingeborg Graessle, a German Christian Democrat MEP, has concluded that time-off is so liberal for staff that for much of the year the European foreign service is on holiday rather than being at work in the EU's 130 delegations across the world. » | Bruno Waterfield | Brussels | Tuesday, March 27, 2012
