An irreparable blow to her independence RAE and to the possibility of effective oversight and control of the energy market, the bill is being discussed in Parliament, for its transformation into Waste, Energy and Water Management Authority (RAAEF)according to RAE staff.

In line with the relevant position in Parliament of RAE President Athanasios Dagoumas, at yesterday’s press conference, the RAE Employees’ Association raised strong objections not to the development of the RAE, but to the way it is being launched through the bill, as he argued, this exacerbates the serious problem of staffing shortages and violates European directives on the independence of regulators. The workers even announced that they would file a complaint with the EU. for violating the European institutional framework if there are no changes in these two issues.

The staff of the RAE lacks 22% of the positions provided for by the staffing table. In particular, according to the data announced by the employees, the organizational structure provides for 211 full-time positions, of which only 46 are active. In total, 104 employees work in the RAE, of which 58 are temporary. The RAE was last recruited in 2013 through a competition announced in 2008. Thus, although the volume of work is constantly increasing as new and complex issues are added under its control, the staff is decreasing, in contrast to the corresponding European bodies, which period they increase their staff at a rate of 2%-5% per year. Another problem is the drain of personnel in the energy market company due to the difference in wages. Staff salaries are set according to a single salary scale and are reduced after November 2011 by an average of 35%, which does not apply from 2021 to PPC, ADMIE, DESFA, DEPA Infrastructure, while the submitted bill provides for the extension of this regime to DEPA, with RAE staff talking about unfavorable treatment from the authorities.

The workers link the problem of understaffing with the necessary independence of the RAE from the European framework, on which their criticism is focused. In particular, they find circumvention of the directive on the independence of the RAE in the transitional provisions of the bill on changing the official status of the members of the Plenum. They note that they downplay the role of the RAE and can show “that the true will of the executive branch is to change the composition of the plenum.”

The operational independence of RAE staff, in the opinion of the workers, is also affected by the provision of the draft law on the establishment of committees that will consider specialized issues that require immediate resolution. They will also include non-RAE service employees, and in matters relating to the energy sector, participation by RAE employees is limited to 10%. This article paves the way for serious issues to be handled by external consultants who are not bound by confidentiality obligations, such as RAE staff. “Therefore, we do not take part in committees with external consultants and thereby legitimize conclusions that are not the result of the independent work of the Secretariat,” the RAE staff say.