Comparative Analysis of the Legal Status of Ministries of Defence Staff in Selected European Countries

Abstract

The objective of the paper is to examine key aspects of human resources management of different categories of personnel in ministries of defence, i.e. civil servants, military officials and other staff categories in Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia. The paper analyses the legal rights and responsibilities of all categories of staff, with a special focus on the recruitment and selection process and remuneration and assesses whether they are in line with international standards. The findings of the analysis demonstrate important exceptions to the principle of merit and public competition rules in the defence sector in all three countries, which poses a serious risk for the application of the merit principle. In all analysed countries there are also separate remuneration legal regimes, which enables the employees in the defence sector to have higher levels of salaries in comparison to their colleagues in the civil service. Although the desire to increase the level of salaries may be understandable in order to increase the motivation of MoD’s staff, this comes with the risk of undermining the unity of the civil service. In order to overcome these issues, it is important to ensure the observance of the merit principle with regard to recruitment and selection of the MoD’s staff based on an open competition. Furthermore, it is recommended that a careful job benchmarking exercise be carried out which would compare the complexity and responsibility of jobs in the civil service and armed forces and align their salary levels in a fair and acceptable manner.