The "Copernicus plan" for the reform of Belgium's federal civil service, which is one of the government's priorities, is giving rise to considerable tension among civil servants in early 2001. On 13 February, some 10,000 civil servants demonstrated in Brussels to protest against the plan, while negotiations with the trade unions were deadlocked and further action was scheduled for March.
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The "Copernicus plan" for the reform of Belgium's federal civil service, which is one of the government's priorities, is giving rise to considerable tension among civil servants in early 2001. On 13 February, some 10,000 civil servants demonstrated in Brussels to protest against the plan, while negotiations with the trade unions were deadlocked and further action was scheduled for March.
The Liberal/Socialist/Green federal government that resulted from the parliamentary elections of June 1999 has made the modernisation of the civil service one of its top priorities. The government declaration The way forward to the 21st century (La voie vers le 21ème siècle/De brug naar de eenentwintigste eeuw) thus announced sweeping reforms of the civil service aimed at restoring public confidence in public institutions. The Prime Minister, Guy Verhofstadt, announced that it would be the most important reform of the Belgian civil service since the introduction of the "Camu status" at the end of the 1930s. (In 1937, the Prime Minister appointed a Royal Commissioner for administrative reform, Mr Camu, in order to resolve problems of a technical nature. The resulting administrative reform aimed to: finalise a general status for officers of the state (called "Camu status"); improve the material situation of civil servants (settled in 1964); resolve problems of administrative structures and organisation; and modernise the material conditions for state administration.)
The main themes of the new modernisation plan, known as the Copernic or Copernicus plan, were adopted in April 2000. Two months later, a public consultation process was organised (BE0006317F). Since then, various sections of the reform have been subject to cabinet decisions. The government intends implementing the entire plan by the end of the current parliament in 2003. The reform will directly affect some 61,000 federal civil servants, a little under 10% of the working civil servants in Belgium (the other working for the regions, communities etc).
Dissatisfied with the lack of dialogue from the Minister of the Civil Service and the Modernisation of Public Administration (the Flemish socialist Luc Van den Bossche), the two main central trade union organisations in the civil service organised a demonstration on 13 February in the streets of Brussels. Close to 10,000 civil servants took part, while the two unions had expected 6,000 people. The two unions are the Christian Civil Service Federation (Christelijke Centrale der Openbare Diensten/Centrale Chétienne des Services Publiques, CCOD/CCSP), affiliated to the Confederation of Christian Trade Unions (Confédération des Syndicats Chrétiens/Algemeen Christelijk Vakverbond, CSC/ACV) and the General Public Service Federation (Algemene Centrale van de Openbare Diensten/Centrale Générale des Services Publiques, ACOD/CGSP), affiliated to the Belgian General Federation of Labour (Fédération Générale du Travail de Belgique/Algemeen Belgisch Vakverbond, FGTB/ABVV.)
In addition to supporting the principle of global negotiations (incorporating the issues of structures, appointments, pay etc), the two central civil service unions denounce several tendencies seen as inherent in Mr Van den Bossche's plan, notably:
a "creeping privatisation" which threatens public services (which should be a factor of social cohesion);
the introduction of a "managerial" philosophy; and
a lack of answers to many questions.
Some of the key points of the Copernicus plan to modernise the federal civil service are given below:
The abolition of ministerial"cabinets". The aim is to recreate a closer link between ministerial "cabinets" and federal departments. The new architecture of the ministries – rebaptised "federal services" - will consist of: a policy secretariat (each minister will have a team of a maximum of 13 people, including drivers); a strategy council (a body to define the minister's policy, with its execution in the hands of an executive committee), including managers from the departments affected by the ministry and also external experts; and a strategy unit (a body to coordinate policy preparation within each federal department).
A new organisation chart for the federal public services (formerly ministries). The future arrangement will be structured around three types of services: "vertical services" (with a more uniform definition of the powers devolved to each ministry); "horizontal services" (responsible for cooperation with the various vertical services, in particular with regard to budget control, personnel management, information technologies etc); and "programming services "(responsible for administrative simplification, sustainable development, telecommunications, equal opportunities etc).
Appointments. One of the plan's new aspects (highly controversial for the unions) is to open up certain management positions in the civil service to people who have followed a career in the private sector. On 16 February 2001, the government thus approved a draft order setting up a system of "top managers" (400 positions have been mentioned) in the federal civil service under temporary contracts of employment (the appointments will thus be for six years). The Minister of the Civil Service has referred to recruitment "under market conditions" without further clarification.
"E-government". Another emphasis of the reform consists of accelerating procedures within services and also with respect to the public. This acceleration will in particular involve increasing the budgets allocated to computerisation. As with the rest of the reform, no specific or general budgetary figure has been given by the government.
The demonstrators on 13 February essentially called on the government to organise talks on the whole of the Copernicus plan within Comité B (the employee consultative body for the federal ministries and quasi-state organisations), and not a "step-by-step" negotiation preventing a clear view of the whole programme. Negotiations with the trade unions were deadlocked in late February and further action was scheduled for March.
Eurofound recommends citing this publication in the following way.
Eurofound (2001), Federal civil servants opposed to reform plan, article.
