All associations of judges and prosecutors, except the Professional Association of the Magistracy (APM) –the majority of the judges–, have reached an agreement with the Ministries of Justice and the Treasury to avoid an indefinite strike and have accepted the offer of 46.7 million euros, which translates into about 450 euros more per month that will be applied to the entire career. The official signing of the pact will take place on Tuesday, at 1:00 p.m.
Edmundo Rodríguez, spokesman for Judges and Judges for Democracy, He was the first to inform the press that the agreement was reached this Thursday, although without unanimity. “We have just finished the text that is going to be signed next Tuesday. We have reached an agreement with six of the seven judicial associations together with the Government and the other representatives,” he pointed out while stressing that the Remuneration Table will remain ” open” for the future.
After five meetings, six of the seven associations of judges and prosecutors have closed this Thursday the last “fringes” of the negotiation and they have put an end to the conflict and the strike call that four of them had planned for Monday, May 22. The APM has distanced itself from the pact by considering the Ministry’s proposal “insufficient”, but has not specified whether it plans to make a stoppage.
“I am still in negotiation; the others seem not, that they have already reached the end of the negotiation,” said the APM spokesman, Juan Jose Carbonero, in statements to the press after the rest of the associations communicated their decision to sign the agreement. According to him, “today what is on the table does not satisfy the majority association”.
Asked if the APM will go on strike by distancing itself from the agreement of the majority, Carbonero has assured that since his association they suspended the break “without date”. “I’m not ruling anything out,” he said, before insisting that “until Tuesday arrives, at the time of signing, there’s time to bring positions closer together.”
Sources close to the negotiation have assured Europa Press that from Justice they celebrate the agreement that has been reached with the six associations and they have assured that they would like the seventh, the APM, to join the firm.
Asked if the agreement will be for everyone since it does not have unanimous support, the JJpD spokesman explained that the pact will be submitted to the Council of Ministers as a proposal of the Remuneration table and it will be he who will decide if he assumes this initiative that, as he recalled, would affect the entire judicial and prosecutorial career.
AF and AJFV say that it is not “the desired agreement”
Although the six signatory associations have celebrated the agreement, the most pleased have been the two progressive associations. Inés Herreros (UPF) and Rodríguez (JJpD) They have applauded the agreement because, as they have stressed, “it will mean improvements of a remuneration nature”.
However, from the Association of Prosecutors (AF) and the Francisco de Vitoria Judicial Association (AJFV) They have specified that, although they are in favor of the pact, the text does not fully meet their demands.
Cristina Dexeus (AF) has assured that, although they will sign, this “is not” the agreement that she would have “desired”. Jose Ignacio Martinez (AJFV) He has acknowledged that he is not “fully” satisfied, but has assured that “it is progress”. Thus, she has applauded that this is “the beginning of a series of works that are going to be carried out ‘later’ to improve judicial and prosecutorial careers.”
The Justice and Public Service proposal
The six associations have given the go-ahead to the Justice offer after rejecting on two previous occasions the options that Pilar Llop’s team put on the table. First they said no to an economic proposal of 44 million euros. Then they ruled out signing an offer for the same €46.7 million which they have now accepted.
It was last Tuesday when the Ministry offered them a third proposal that, although it did not improve the amount, did include another series of points that have finally convinced six of the associations.
The agreement that has been reached this Thursday includes a game of 46.7 million euros that would translate into a weighted average individual increase of about 447 euros in 12 payments. Said increase would represent an average increase over the individual remunerations of up to 7%which would be added to the 8% increase approved by the Government for civil servants.
According to sources close to the negotiation, the increases negotiated within the framework of the Remuneration table they would be paid in three tranches: 40% retroactively to January 1, 2023; 40% that will accrue on January 1, 2024; and 20% that will have economic effects on July 1, 2024.
From the Ministry, they specified in a statement that the offer included, in addition to the increase in the destination complement for representation, the modification of the laws in process to provide the presidency of the courts of instance with “sufficient strength to face the new challenges for the organization. As he stressed, the government chambers of the superior courts of justice also “they would see their executive role strengthened.”
Regarding the fiscal career, the Ministry directed by Llop raised “address as quickly as possible the processing of the conversion of places, the splitting of the higher prosecutor’s offices in the single-province autonomous communities and the inclusion, in the annexes of Law 15/2003, of the posts of senior prosecutors, delegated prosecutors and area prosecutors”.
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In addition, the Government proposed that the members of the Remuneration Board establish a “new framework of relations, characterized by continuous dialogue”. “To this end, permanent working groups will be set up, and the Commission will meet annually, to assess the development and application of the agreements reached, taking into account budgetary availability and the work carried out by the different groups,” Justice explained. .
Likewise, the Executive promised to increase the 2023 public employment offer for judges and prosecutors by 100 positions, and “an equivalent increase in the offer corresponding to the year 2024”as explained by the Ministry.