- guardian.co.uk, Thursday 1 March 2001 13.18 GMT
The former Labour leader unveiled radical reforms that would link pay to performance for the first time and remove a raft of anachronistic and politically unacceptable privileges.
The largest and most powerful union, Union Syndicale, had previously threatened to call a strike, accusing Mr Kinnock, the EC vice-president, of failing to consult it about the changes. But yesterday its president, Alan Hick, said his members had been placated after the EC president, Romano Prodi, agreed to meet one of the union's key demands.
However, one EU official, who declined to be named, claimed the unions had won no concessions: they had just been looking for a way out. "This looks like they're grasping a fig leaf so as not to have a strike. They have talked themselves into a corner and now they're trying to back down."
Mr Kinnock's plans, which now go through a four-month consultation period, include sweeping away a controversial bank transfer arrangement whereby officials are allowed to send up to a third of their salary home at a special low exchange rate. British officials have been able to make up to 50p on every pound they send.
A special travel allowance that allows Eurocrats to claim the equivalent of first-class return rail fares to their countries of origin twice a year will also be discontinued.
