Life at the Commission is frequently well rewarded. One in five staff take home more than David Cameron does from his £142,000 a year salary, thanks to generous living allowances and a special 13 per cent tax rate.
Yet some employees regard it as a gilded cage, with staff underworked and bored yet unable to find comparable remuneration elsewhere.
Those found to have flouted the rules and yet kept their jobs included four officials who failed to declare the family allowances paid to them by their home countries while working for the commission – meaning they received more allowances than they were entitled to from the commission.
The “grossly negligent” act resulted in a “significant financial loss” and was only discovered by chance. They were demoted, two temporarily.
In another case, an official lied about their home nationality during the recruitment process, “and then produced documents which had been tampered with”. They were demoted for one year.
Another official who lied about his nationality in order to receive a higher expatriation allowance was demoted. It was a second offence, but the official allowed to remain in post after showing “remorse”.
In a further case, a “very senior” commission official who wrongly received “substantial” sums of rental allowances over several years had his pension docked for three years.
Another bureaucrat received family, education and medical allowances for his son for four years in a “persistent and deliberate” fraud – when the young man was in fact in work. The official had his pension docked for three years after a criminal conviction.
One official was reprimanded after presenting the administration with an “altered” medical certificate after his doctor refused a diagnosis.
In another case, an official requested a period of leave “on personal grounds” while “at the same time, without requesting prior permission, offered his services to the Commission as a remunerated external consultant.” They were reprimanded.
The records reveals how one official was dismissed for “embezzlement” – while others accused of attempting to secure jobs or contracts for their family members kept their jobs.
“A staff member who recommended some people he knew, including his sister-in-law to a contracting party of the Commission with a view to obtaining employment for them, received a reprimand. As he was responsible for the execution of the contract, he placed himself in a situation of conflict of interest liable to adversely reflect upon the reputation of the Institution,” the records reveal.
In another case: “A caution was given to another staff member who requested a false invoice for a member of his family under a contract he was responsible for. The isolated nature of the incident was taken into consideration in not opening a disciplinary procedure.”
Another official was cautioned after they “made use of a vehicle owned by a contracting party to the Commission for the transportation of his personal belongings. Although he was responsible for the execution of the contract with the party in question, the very limited nature of the service rendered and the isolated nature of the incident meant that the opening of a disciplinary procedure was not justified in this case.”
The records reveal a number of cases of lewd and violent behaviour in the European Commission’s Brussels offices.
In one case: “A staff member who was responsible for more than 100GB of downloaded material (equivalent to 200-300 hours of on-line video) from over 100 sexually explicit websites was downgraded. The fact that this was his second offence of this nature was an aggravating factor.” Another was sanctioned for “ frequent and intensive” use of pornographic websites.
Another civil servant received a reprimand “for conduct of an explicit sexual nature towards two colleagues at the place of work”, while another was chastised for “physical aggression and insulting remarks towards a colleague [which] cannot be excused by a state of tiredness brought about by intense working conditions."
Another official who used his position to access the personal data of a colleague “for private ends” was reprimanded.
Staff who were dismissed included a contractor who submitted a forged diploma during the recruitment process, and an official who refused “over several years” to do his job, which he "considered to be beneath his level of academic training".
Peter Bone, the Conservative MP for Wellingborough, said: "It seems EU bureaucrats live in their own sort of world with their own rules, totally different to those of normal government. If these things had been done by a British civil servant, they'd have been fired.
“It shows that the EU is not there for people of Europe, but the Brussels elites."
A European Commission spokesman said: “The Commission is one of the most transparent institutions in terms of its personnel matters. It has a robust, fair and impartial approach to disciplinary matters and does not hesitate to impose serious sanctions when it finds evidence of wrongdoings, including demotions and dismissals.”
