Brussels, 08/02/2012 (Agence Europe) - Mission accomplished. On Wednesday 8 February 2012, the European Commission submitted to the budget authority its final report on the recruitment of Bulgarian and Romanian officials (the two member states joined the EU in 2007). The Commission has recruited 478 Bulgarians and 727 Romanians, exceeding its 23.3% recruitment target (228 new members of staff).
The Commission has pledged to recruit a total of 977 members of staff from the two countries as EU officials and temporary agents (596 AD and 381 AST), and secondary targets were set for middle management (63 posts) and upper management (15 posts). Suggested targets were set for each country (332 for Bulgaria and 645 for Romania) and the Commission has recruited 1,205 Bulgarians and Romanians in total. The latest round of recruitment has sharply improved the gender balance at management level. For the middle and upper management jobs, 60.3% and 46.3% of the new recruits are women, and 75% of the AD and AST recruits are women. (LC/transl.fl)