Brussels, 19/02/2003 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday, the European Commission adopted a Communication in which it plans for the recruitment over a seven year transition period for 3,441 officials from the new Member States: 1,341 from Poland, 492 from the Czech Republic, 489 from Hungary, 279 from Slovakia, 241 from Lithuania, 155 from Latvia, 134 from Slovenia, 117 from Estonia, 110 from Cyprus and 83 from Malta. Out of these 3,441 officials there will be 10 grade A1, 42 A2 officials and 189 middle management Head of Unit posts.
During a press conference, Commissioner Neil Kinnock explained that the Commission intended to outline the recruitment objectives and would not set quotas or ceilings, "Nationals from new Member States will obviously be able to enter any of the EU-wide concours in which they have interest. There will be no glass ceiling".
Mr Kinnock described how the application of a seven year transition period for special recruitment measures can be explained for the following reasons: 1) the realities of the Financial Perspectives mean that several thousand officials cannot be recruited at once; 2) It is in the interest of the Commission and new Member States to adopt a reasonably gradual approach, in order to ensure effective integration of the new officials in the Commission and to sustain stability of operations in the administration of incoming countries". Mr Kinnock added that it was not in the interest of personnel to have a "brain drain". The Commission, he stressed, had adopted the same approach since the last enlargement by proposing that the Council applies a derogation (limited to seven years) to the rule that prevents jobs being reserved for a particualr Member State. Mr Kinnock pointed out, whilst answering questions, that the transition period for recruiting officials at the last enlargement (Austria, Finland and Sweden) lasted five years.
Mr Kinnock remarked that in the context of recruitment objectives for the next Member States:
- These objectives covered all categories of posts with the exception of A1 research posts. The Commissioner also explained that recruiting researchers was being done according to operational criteria and that it was not necessary to plan any special measures. For A1 officials, the Commission will continue to apply the rule according to which at least one qualified national from a Member State occupies a Director General of head of Service or equivalent post.
- For the rest of the officials, general competitions will be organised for the different nationalities with two exceptions: competitions for linguists will be organised by language and candidates for A1 posts will be selected in all acceding countries.
Mr Kinnock explained that the Commission had now determined the recruitment objectives that they had set out.
The Commission first of all identified three criteria (which take into account the provisions of the Treaty of Nice): the number of inhabitants per country; the weighting of votes for each State in Council; the number of seats in the European Parliament. In calculation of these criteria the Commission has worked out: 1) overall share of posts in the enlarged EU; 2) an indicative overall recruitment target of 2/3 of this figure during a seven year transition period - 3441 posts. In using this approach, new Member States will have a weight of 21.6% in the enlarged Europe, which means an overall share or 5,161 posts with a recruitment objective. The Commissioner pointed out that if this new approach were going to succeed, it would be necessary for the budgetary authority (Parliament and the Council) to, "confirm the financing of the additional posts". If only a smaller number of posts is granted, the indicative targets would naturally and regrettably have to be lower. Mr Kinnock added that the most important elements in the reform were that they were implemented well before the accession of the ten new Member States. The overall measures will enable economies to be obtained of over EUR 1 billion over the first fifteen years. The Commissioner pointed out that much would depend on the will the Council and Parliament to adopt proposals on reforming the provisions in the status of the European institutions. Mr Kinnock was also of the opinion that the Council had every reason to carry this out in the given period in order to avoid "greater complications and substantial extra costs".