At this time of year, the drinks and the banter flow. You may find your friends teasing you about the scandalous privileges you enjoy as EU officials. Here’s something that should help you come up with stunning counter-arguments…

Myintracomm has come up with the excellent idea of launching a series of articles on “The European Civil Service – Myths and Reality”

A Commission RAPID press release describing the vagaries of applying the ‘Method’ for 2012 also contains some useful data.

We have used these two documents to compile information that will give you more ammunition in arguments with Eurocratophobes!

– The EU budget amounts to 1 % of the combined GDP of the 27 Member States (EUR 130 billion), which works out at 70 cents a day per person to fund the Union for a year.

– A total of 94 % of the Union’s budget is spent on citizens, regions, towns, farmers and businesses – meaning that money is being invested in growth and employment, and not being spent on so-called “Eurocrats”.

– The total cost of the EU administration is EUR 8.3 billion – the equivalent of around 6 % of the Union’s total budget.

– The Member States combined spend EUR 2,200 billion on their civil services.

– Under the current “method”, the salaries of EU officials are linked to the salaries of public employees in eight Member States.

– Between 2004 and 2011, EU officials’ purchasing power declined by 7.6 %.

– As part of its package of reforms to the Staff Regulations, the Commission has proposed to reduce staff levels across the EU institutions and agencies by 5 % between 2013 and 2017, to increase the minimum working week to 40 hours without salary adjustments, to raise the standard retirement age to 65, and to increase the solidarity levy from 5.5 % to 6 %.

– In total, the EU employs 33,000 officials. By way of comparison, the city of Paris employs 51,240 public officials – not counting contract staff (Commission data updated).

– EU officials pay pension contributions amounting to 11.6% of their gross basic salary, compared with civil servants in the French, British and Dutch systems who pay 7.85%, 3.5% and 6.42% respectively. Public employees in Germany, Bulgaria, Estonia and Sweden do not pay any pension contributions.

– See also the table published by “The Telegraph”, comparing the employment situation of EU officials with their counterparts in the British civil service.

– Last but not least, be sure to read last week’s press release by Dagmar Roth‑Behrendt, Parliament’s rapporteur on reform of the Staff Regulations, as well as the Press Release following the 18 December JURI Committee meeting entitled “Council fails to act!”