Written Question Ashley Mote

Parliamentary questions

21 June 2007

E-3105/07

WRITTEN QUESTION by Ashley Mote (ITS) to the Commission

Subject: Safeguards against external psychiatrists

Answer(s)

1. Has the European Commission no second thoughts about external psychiatrists asking intimate or vulgar questions about staff members' love lives when they are interviewed?

2. What, if any, are the safeguards for those staff members of the European Commission who are sent to external psychiatrists that they will be asked only questions that are related to their ability to work at the Commission?

3. Which of the doctors in the European Commission's medical service has not sworn the oath of Hippocrates, which contains the following, ‘I will […] abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous’?

4. For the years 2004, 2005 and 2006, can the Commission please indicate how often doctors from the European Commission's medical service have advised perfectly healthy staff members to opt for invalidity?

5. Can the Commission confirm that, in at least one recent case, a healthy staff member was urged to take sick leave? When the employee concerned asked to go on unpaid leave and work outside the Commission this was at first refused. Why, afterwards, was the invalidity procedure started for spurious family reasons?

6. How does the Commission respond to paragraph 179 of the European Parliament's discharge report for 2005, which reads ‘Expresses […] its concern for the growing cost of invalidity pensions and considers the use of mandatory invalidity pensions based on psychological disorders to resolve any conflicting relationship with Commission personnel as unacceptable’?

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