With regard to the austerity measures outlined and the agreement reached with the social partners, I would like to highlight the incorrect regulation or freezing of promotions for civil servants.
I will not go into an assessment of whether future intervention in the salaries of civil servants is even necessary, but it is certainly essential that the burden of austerity measures be shared fairly. This is precisely what the proposed freeze on promotions does not guarantee. While a linear reduction in salaries affects all civil servants equally, a freeze on promotions does not affect some groups of civil servants at all, while others are significantly affected.
Those civil servants who have already completed all the promotions for a given post (both in title and in salary grades - i.e. they are "on the plafond"), i.e. those with the highest salaries within equally valued posts, are not affected by the freeze in any way. Conversely, those in the starting or otherwise low pay grades are severely affected by the freeze, as, logically, they cannot be promoted. Put simply, the freeze on promotions leaves some civil servants "stuck" in the highest pay grades and others in the lowest (and of course everyone in between), which is not only unfair but also constitutionally objectionable, as it clearly violates the right to equality before the law. The burden of the austerity measures is in no way passed on to those who would not otherwise have been promoted, while on the other hand the full weight of the measure is borne by those who still have the whole promotion period to go.
Needless to say, such an arrangement is not only constitutionally controversial and highly unfair, but also highly uneconomic, since it takes away the motivation of young employees, who should be encouraged the most, while in no way affecting those who have already completed all their promotions (and for whom this motivating factor was not already present).
Before implementing the envisaged measures in law, I therefore suggest that the Government reconsider whether the solution of freezing promotions is appropriate and constitutional, or whether the same savings effects might need to be achieved in another way. The solution offered as the simplest (and no more costly to the State) is to unfreeze promotions on the one hand and to reduce all salaries by a larger percentage on a linear basis. Using a simple mathematical operation, it is easy to work out what the reduction in salaries would have to be while unfreezing promotions in order to maintain the amount of savings foreseen, or the total amount of funds earmarked for the salaries of civil servants in a given year. In this way, the burden of the austerity measures would be spread equally across all civil servants, those at the beginning and those at the end (and, of course, everyone in between) of their careers, in terms of promotions, or, to put it in more domestic terms, in this way, we would reduce the salaries and rights of all civil servants equally, instead of making savings by preventing those with smaller salaries from getting bigger ones, while those with bigger ones are not affected in any way.
I believe that my criticism is justified and the proposal is fair, and I would therefore appeal to the relevant department to amend the text before the relevant law is passed, as a subsequent constitutional judicial intervention (which I am sure would be successful) would also cause great confusion from the point of view of social dialogue.