Kristalina Georgieva, European commissioner for budget and human resources, reminds the European Parliament to be mindful of the targets. | EPA/ /OLIVIER HOSLET Parliament is a job-cuts slacker The institution lags far behind its EU counterparts.

The European Parliament has fallen far behind other EU institutions in meeting an across-the-board, five percent staff cut agreed to in 2013.

The Parliament is set to shed only 14 posts by next year — just 0.2 percent of its total staff of 6,618, and far short of the 331 jobs that must be trimmed by the end of 2017, according to the latest European Commission figures. At this rate, the Parliament will be required to eliminate 317 jobs in 2017 alone.

Other institutions, which are also required to trim five percent of their staff over five years, are well ahead of the Parliament. The cuts stem from a 2013 agreement to reign in administrative spending — an attempt to prove that, like national governments coping with austerity measures, the EU can make do with less.

The European Commission is planning to lose 1,015 posts by the end of 2016, nearly reaching its five percent target a year early. It is shedding staff at a steady rate, between 250 and 263 posts per year, largely due to attrition. This will leave the Commission with 237 jobs to cut in the final year.

The European Council is the best performer among the large EU institutions, set to achieve 90 percent of its target a year ahead of the deadline — cutting 142 posts out of the 157 agreed.

The Parliament insists it is aware of the task.

“The European Parliament remains committed to fulfill the target of reducing its staff by five percent in 2018 in relation to the level of 2013 and is on track to achieve it through more efficient management of available human resources, including redeployment,” Parliament spokesperson Cezary Lewandowicz wrote in an emailed statement.

Lewandowicz declined to provide details on its plans for making the job cuts. Budget Rapporteur Gérard Deprez, a Belgian MEP from the Parliament’s liberal faction, was unavailable for comment, and Klaus Welle, the Parliament’s secretary-general, declined to comment.

In fact, the Parliament may be setting itself for an even bigger challenge than the numbers show.

The Parliament actually appears to be on a hiring spree, including creating 20 posts for the secretariats of several parliamentary committees.

“The Commission has encouraged all EU institutions and bodies to follow the same rigorous approach when preparing their estimates, both as regards staffing numbers and administrative expenditure,” a Commission official with knowledge of the file told POLITICO.

Kristalina Georgieva, the European commissioner for budget and human resources, told the Parliament to be mindful of the targets.

“Our five percent staff cut is on track,” Georgieva said at a plenary session in March. "We really hope all institutions will stick to the same administrative restraint so that we can demonstrate to taxpayers that our focus is on what we do for them.”