EU member states are set to approve a salary increase for EU officials, a move that is likely to prompt further industrial action.

Member states’ ambassadors agreed on Friday (18 December) to grant staff at the European institutions a pay rise of 1.85% instead of the 3.7% due under a pay deal struck in 2004, which provides a formula for annual salary adjustments.

Today (22 December), environment ministers meeting in Brussels rubberstamped one element of the pay deal, which concerns the deduction of an increased pension contribution from salaries. The other part of the pay deal – the actual remuneration package – is to be agreed in a written procedure that ends tomorrow night. A spokesperson for Sweden, holder of the EU’s rotating presidency, said that the written procedure was necessary to give member states more time to study the details of the plan and to have it translated.

The European Commission opposes the pay offer, saying that it breaks EU law. In a letter to Commission staff on Saturday, Catherine Day, the Commission’s secretary-general, and Irene Souka, the Commission’s director-general for personnel and administration, wrote: “The Commission considers that this is not an issue of giving staff a higher or lower salary increase; it is a matter of applying a binding method, of respecting Community law and of respecting an agreement with staff representatives in 2004.”

A spokesman for the European Commission said today that the Commission would consider legal options to ensure that the decision was changed. He added that this would take place a matter of days after the decision had been approved.

Staff unions are threatening strikes in the new year and their members have vowed not to work overtime.