Strasbourg, 28/05/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Ombudsman, Jacob Söderman, called on the European Commission to put an end to the sexual discriminations existing in the recruitment conditions for national experts on secondment.
The recommendation from the Ombudsman follows on from a complaint made by a British citizen. The plaintiff, a civil servant in the United Kingdom in London, put forward her candidacy for a seconded post with the European Commission. Her employer accepted to support her candidacy and to pay her salary for the duration of her secondment. The plaintiff put across her desire to work in the Commission part-time, in order to take care of her young child. However, having realised that the Commission insisted for seconded national experts to work full-time, she was forced to withdraw her candidacy.
The Ombudsman confirmed the plaintiff's claims according to which the Commission regulation consists of a discrimination based on sex, and sent it the following recommendation: The European Commission should remove its regulation that bans national civil servants being seconded from working part-time. The Commission accepted to apply the Ombudsman's recommendation during the next general modification of its regulation. However, the Ombudsman feels that there is no reason for the discriminatory regulation to continue to apply until then, and called on the Commission to end its regulation by 30 September 2001, at the latest.