Brussels, 27/04/2005 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday, the European Commission published figures on the recruitment of officials from the new Member States. Targets have been reached and the procedure is now at cruising speed, the Commission Vice-President, Siim Kallas, said speaking at a press conference, recognising that progress accomplished is uneven and some specific steps must be taken to correct the imbalances. Commissioner Kallas also noted the lack of candidates for posts on the legal staff or as internal auditors.
Commissioner Kallas recalled that, when it comes to recruitment, the Commission considers the main factor to be individual merit. Nonetheless, if the number of officials recruited in any one Member State is below two thirds of the indicative total foreseen, the Commission must do what is necessary to make up for the imbalance. In such a case, the objectives would have to be changed or an extra effort made to recruit personnel from these Member States, Mr Kallas added.
First wave of competitions satisfactorily completed: From 2004-2010, the Commission plans to take on 3,441 officials (including temporary agents) from the ten new Member States. Out of the 2,700 laureates of these competitions, the Commission has recruited 1,081 officials and temporary agents from the ten new Member States (the target for 2004 and 2005 is 1,529 recruitments), including 249 Polish, 173 Hungarian and 137 Czechs.
Management staff: About fifty senior and 189 middle management posts are foreseen for the new Member States. At Director-General or Deputy Director-General level, five out of the 10 nomination decisions have already been taken and five remain to be taken (but there is no-one from Poland as yet, critics say). The Commission therefore decided in March this year to speed up the publication of posts available. The recruitment of Heads of Representation (one per Member State) is proceeding according to schedule and the first nomination decisions are planned for July 2005.
As far as the Heads of Unit (intermediary management) are concerned, the 2004 target has not been reached, as the list of first round competition laureates was not made available by the Commission until April 2005. The number of the laureates will only allow the targets set for the years 2004 and 2005 (83 and 43 respectively) to be partially met. As the results of the second wave of competitions will probably not be known this year, the target set for 2005 will not be reached until 2006. Nonetheless, if the second wave gives the results hoped for, the target for the whole of the period 2004-2010 will be reached.