The sheer number of comments at the main post ‘So I Won’t Be A Commission Official‘ has been causing problems, so all the old comments are here instead, and hence searchable.

2,067 Comments

  1. Sorina

    @lia2
    Actually, I know somebody that works in the Commission. What he says is that usually, every year, the recruitment process has a peak in spring, because after the New Year they start thinking about new projects etc, and it takes some time to start looking for new people, but it does not mean you cannot be hired earlier or later during the year.

  2. Sorina

    @lia2

    It is not true what you’ve heard. I am an AD 47 laureate and I had an interview in early December. They contacted me much earlier, maybe at the end of October. Unfortunately, they didn’t offer me a job.

  3. riviere

    CAST 27 – POLITICAL AFFAIRS ADVISOR POSTS ??

    [ THE SILENCE OF………. REJECTION……… ]

    Hello all: Just wondering – does anyone know whether any of the persons who passed the Cast 27 selection process last year have since been interviewed / recruited ?

    I have heard zilch since the e-mail telling me I had passed (along with 250 others from about twice that number who actually sat the exams).

    I realize the competition is extremely stiff but – is there anything one can do to improve one’s chances of getting ‘the call’ ( or more prosaically the e-mail I imagine ). ?

    Or does one just ….. endure…… the silence of rejection ???

  4. hi everyone! and since it’s my first time this year on the blog, a better year to everyone!
    @ AD 46-47 laureates
    just heard a rumor according to which they are going to start recruiting from our lists (might be concerning EPA in particular) only since May. if anyone has contacts inside one of the institutions, could try and see if that is true.
    well, if it is true, this piece of news would at least save us from daily disappointment of opening up the mailbox and yet no news from Brussels… cheers!!

  5. @panagiotis

    There is the German version of Jos Depondt’s 250 MCQ book. Very good is also “Europa von A bis Z”
    by Werner Weidenfeld and Wolfgang Wessels.

  6. panagiotis

    Well, I now realize that the preselection tests for concours EPSO/AD/100/07 (English-language translators) are going to be in French or German depending on the choice one made, not English!

    In my case this will be German. Does anyone have any advice regarding what books are useful for one to prepare for preselection tests in *German*?

    Thanks!

  7. Hi everyone,

    Did anyone take the written exam for AD 94/07 last Friday? How are your impressions? I did… but don’t feel that well about the results. I found it quite difficult to switch language after 2hours (2 hrs: 2nd language followed by 30 minutes of a short resume in your first one!). So, how about you?

  8. viking

    @ belinda
    I was positive towards the EU before I started my preparations. The more I knew about the EU the more enthusiastic I got. It might be that you would also experience a lift from your rather ambivalent view to a more positive one.
    You should bear in mind, however, that the way to a job is long and thorny. But on the other hand: A lawyer with Irish – how many qualified persons can there be on the green island? At the end of the day, EPSO are very likely to end up with a very short list of laureates. Thus, you will probably not have to wait on the job like most of us. You “just” have to make it on to the list.

  9. belinda502

    My comments were certainly not a trolling attempt and I am surprised at your remark. If you had read them you would have seen that ‘money’ is not primarily what motivates me. I am chiefly motivated by the chance to use languages (which I love) in the work area for which I have trained (law) and the chance to live a convivial city (Brussels) and meet people of other nationalilties. Currently I live in a small narrow minded provincial town. I admit to not being that interested in the EU but I am not that interested in my current job either and I am not ambitious. Working in the legal area where I come from is punitive. You can often work up to 65 hour week and the pressure to bring in fees in constant. And before you say why did you do law in the first place, all I can say to you is that everyone makes mistakes and I made a big one when I chose to study law. I am not trained for anything else and I don’t have the money or time to retrain. I was attracted to the EU because of the decent pay and conditions of work which it seems to me would allow you to actually have a life outside work in addition to the other factors I mentioned above.

  10. Frustrated: I was in the same situation: passed a concours, was offered a good job elsewhere, turned it down out of being nice. In the meantime I got a promoted, so no real harm done, but I din’t feel really committed to my current job thinking I might change soon. One year on I’m still waiting and it is indeed frustrating. Best not to think about it at all and just to continue your career (occasionally applying for COM vacancies of course).

    To Belinda: your comment could be a trolling attempt, but, really, you have to have a degree of sympathy for the European Project to do the job. If it’s money that motivates you, you’re better of in the private sector where ambition will earn you much higher returns much quicker. Current average salaries at the EU are high, but new recruits start 2 grades lower than before the reforms and moving up the payscale is very slow.

    EU salaries are high compared to national member states’ administrations, but the size of the Commission is tiny, so career prospects may be less diverse than, say, in the German federal government. If you have little interest in the EU but for the salary, you’re signing up for 35 years in a golden cage…

  11. frustrated

    @ Belinda,

    I’m sort of over it now… still think that people working there are incredible assholes and I can only imagine the sort of sycophantic/nepotistic ass-kissing it took them to get there.
    The worst thing about this system is that they expect you to lie against other employers… tell them you’ll stay with them and complete this or that project… in the mean while you should suck some dick over at the commission and try to muscle your way in.

    I was naive… I didn’t want to sign up with a new employer assuming I could leave him/her any minute… now I no longer give a flying f*ck about being loyal. In a sick way I suppose this means I’m ready for the commission… I’ll sign and try to muscle my way in and aspire to become one of the assholes… all for the filthy lucre.

  12. Natalia

    Hi everyone,

    I’m new to the blog, though I have been checking it from time to time.

    I was successful at the Cast 27 exam for Relex IV, Advisor Good Governance and Security. Now in the reserve list, but ofcourse no news. I tried to contact some delegations in which I was interested but the only answer I got was that they couldn’t tell me anything and that I should wait to hear from Brussels. I guess the same situation as anyone else…

    I think it was Breach that told Panagiotis he should post his cv to the EPSO portal letting them know that he’s in the reserve list. What do you mean by that exactly? My CV is already there as part of my EPSO profile. Shall I post it somewhere else too?

    Now, on the lobbying issue… I keep asking everyone I know if they have any contacts in the Commission to introduce me to. So far, some people said they know some people (not in EPSO or RELEX though) and they asked me what is it exactly that I would need from them. I said that it wasn’t very clear to me because of all the misinformation, and that I was hoping that the ‘contact’ would be able to precisely do this, orientate me. Any advice?

    Many thanks,

    Natalia

  13. belinda502

    Yes, I do find the EU boring. There would be no point in my applying to law firms in Brussels as they have a civil legal system and the Irish system is common law based which ties me to working in countries with a common law legal system. I know that technically under the EU you have the right of establishment in any country but I really don’t see how that would work in practice if you are trained under a different system.
    Anyway, thank you for your comments. From looking at the comments on this site I can see that it takes a lot of study and probably considerable innate ability to survive the EU recruitment process in addition to surmounting the administrative hurdles or being placed indefinitely on a reserve list.

  14. belinda502

    Sorry to hear your story. The whole process certainly sounds extremely frustrating. Perhaps as another poster suggested you should go to the media about it.

  15. Kostas

    As far as I know, it is not possible to “change” to a Temporary Agent position. The Temporary Agent positions are posted on EPSO web site, and are open to everybody. BUT, if one is already a CA in that Agency, has much more chances to get that post, than any “newcomer”. So, it is pretty clear for me that there are 2 ways to “get in”.
    1. By succeeding in the concours for permanent officers and only if the competition is “low” with only a few CAs participating in the same open competition.
    2. By getting a CA post, for 1 year, renew it for at least 1 more year and then go for a Temp post of an agency. This will last for 5 years, and maybe renewed for 5 more and then, maybe, depending on exams, 3rd language etc, become permanent.
    Does anyone know any way to get a CA post other than through a CAST competition?

  16. Ingrid

    ISPRA, GREAT PLACE TO WORK ::((
    WOW!!!

    Letter from the European Ombudsman opening own-initiative inquiry OI/6/2007/MHZ relating to the European Commission

    ” After careful consideration of the information available to me concerning the management of human resources at the JRC, I have decided to open an own-initiative inquiry into that subject.”

    http://ombudsman.europa.eu/initiatives/en/2007oi6opening.htm

  17. viking

    See: “Condition of employment of other servants” art. 3a and 3b + art. 88. It says there that the 3a may only be hired by the institutions in order to “carry out manual or administrative support service tasks”. The 3b CA may be hired by the institutions but they have their contract period restricted to 3 years (art. 88). Then they are kicked out (but some of them will probably be allowed to change to a Temporary Agent-position – a small back door to the institutions).

  18. The only thing that institutions must comply with is the quota (25%, if i recall that right, -staff reg.) of permanent officials. But if they can make permanent officials out of CAs, then we should worry!

  19. Breach

    @viking, that’s good to know, but:

    ‘The 3a-people work in the agencies. The 3b-people work for the institutionses.’ I don’t think the Civil Service page actually says that :-] You can still have 3a people working for the Commission as it seems for any DG. So say, when there’s a vacancy in the Commission it’s still more likely a CA will get it (even if at first temporarily). Anyway, I wonder, what really is the incentive for the Commission to hire people from the Open Competitions’ reserve lists? ’cause if it’s a ‘I need somebody and none of my chaps wants this job, an the internal transfer notice has gone unanswered for the last 3 months, and no contract person wants it either, and I couldn’t find anybody in the CAST25/27 lists, so I’ll resort to the Reserve List for this competition’ then oh, jeez :-]

  20. viking

    @ Breach
    There are two different kinds of CA – the 3a (they get a permanent position after two 5-years contracts) and 3b (they cannot get a permanent position). The 3a-people work in the agencies. The 3b-people work for the institutionses.
    Source: http://ec.europa.eu/civil_service/job/contract/index_bg.htm
    AND
    http://ec.europa.eu/civil_service/docs/toc100_en.pdf
    Condition of employment of other servants, art. 3a and 3b.

    Since it is cheaper for an institution to keep CAs they do it on a regular basis (and at the same time they complain about not having enough qualified people on the lists).

  21. I agree with Breach, it is not EPSO we should blame. I almost feel sorry for the guys there who have to take all the blows and have not the power to really change the situation…

  22. @Breach, so the bottomline is that the only reason they organize open competitions is to give a chance to the already hired CA become permanent officials…

    I wish I knew this 2 years ago when I signed up for the competition. I would have settled my life differently then…

    In fact, the answer of EPSO to my question seems to be completely on the wrong side – it turns out that a permanent position CAN be filled up by a contractuel, and this is what happens in practice.There are no jobs exclusively reserved for people who have passed the competition (as EPSO claims).

    @frustrated, maybe tipping some journalists about this Kafkaesque hell would reach a much bigger audience…

  23. @ Frustrated

    It’s my impression that it’s not really and EPSO problem, as they don’t do the recruiting — they just set up the reserve lists. It’s the DGs, the EP and the other institutions that are messing around and not really recruiting from the reserve lists. It’s the HR officers on the ground (not in EPSO) that don’t take us.

  24. Frustrated

    @ Lia,
    That’s exactly what I am doing on this webpage, warning people not to get their hopes up…
    “Point n’est besoin d’espérer pour entreprendre, ni de réussir pour persévérer.”, it should be engraved above the entrance to the Kafkaesque hell that epso is.

  25. Breach

    @Lia, here’s something to consider from EPSO’s own FAQs:

    What type of contract can I expect? (CAST27 FAQ)

    As a contract agent of this type (contract staff “3a”) you would enjoy longer-term employment prospects, with an initial contract running for a maximum period of five years and renewable for a maximum of five years. The contract can be converted into a contract of indefinite duration.

    Can a contractual position lead automatically to permanent employment?

    No. Permanent recruitment is only possible via open competitions.

    So, although you can’t become an official unless you are successful in an open competition, it is still possible to get an indefinite contract as a contract agent. So an institution could a) Hire someone with no prior EU experience, fresh out of an open competition b) Sign up a contract agent indefinitely, somebody they worked with and know, plus they pay them less. Guess who’d they hire 🙂 It’s also interesting to note that when they talk about hiring EU-2 people they say ‘of the planned XXX positions we filled in YYY’ they never say these positions were filled by open competition laureates, do they. Though technically these are AD/AST positions that’s implied, but never really explicitly stated AFAIK.

  26. @Frustrated,
    even the “good nationality” doesn’t help at present. There is a rumour that a lot of DGs have just signed or renewed the contracts of a large number of CA from the new MS which leaves most of the AD laureates “in limbo”.

    I asked EPSO and they told me that, as a rule, the positions for permanent officials and CA are different, so a permanent position cannot be filled up by a CA (and vice versa). But in the note of Kallas you can actually read that if they do not find laureates with suitable profiles (as vague as this is), they can alwyas resort to CA. And that is what they do..

    @all frustrated, haven’t you thought of going public (e.g. in the media) and exposing the absurdity of the whole situation? At least for the sake of those who just embark on this road and will invest lots of time, energy and money on getting a place on a reserve list which gets you nowhere?

  27. Frustrated

    @ Belinda,

    no not appointed and given the comments I get on the phone (“pas de bonne nationalité”) it’s not very likely to happen in the near future.

  28. panagiotis

    Wrt EPSO/AD/100/07: I have come to the following conclusion: Let’s leave out the countries (or parts thereof) where English, French, or German is the mother tongue of the population. Then we have (rough population figures – in million)

    Italy: 58
    Spain: 42
    Poland: 38
    Romania: 22
    Netherlands: 17
    Greece: 11
    Portugal: 10
    Czech Rep.: 10
    Hungary: 10
    Sweden: 8
    Bulgaria: 8
    Finland: 5
    Denmark: 5
    Slovakia: 5
    Belgium (Flemish): 5
    Lithuania: 3
    Latvia: 2
    Slovenia: 2
    Estonia: 2
    Cyprus: 0.5
    Malta: 0.5
    ————-
    TOTAL: 264 million people

    Every applicant from these countries would be much more likely to be most highly proficient in their native tongue than either of French or German. *The tipping point appears to me to be that Option 2 has 40 laureates whereas Option 1 only 30* So, spontaneously, one would choose the Option that has both a) the easiest languages AND b) the most positions. However, everybody thought that way, resulting in the huge number of applicants in Option 2, compared with Option 1.

    French or German speaking countries:
    – Germany: 82 mil
    – France: 62 mil
    – Austria: 8 mil
    – Belgium (Wallonia): 5 mil
    – Luxembourg: 1 mil
    ————
    TOTAL: 158 million people

    This is fewer than 264 of the other case. And, what is more important, it is not necessary that a native German-speaker would prefer French than another European language. It is quite possible than many native German-speakers have opted for Italian, or Spanish, or even another language (e.g. Swedish or Polish) rather than French. Likewise, native-French speakers may have opted for Spanish or Italian or Portuguese rather than German…

    Now, with the respect to the applicants for the British Isles. Knowledge of French is high in the UK and Ireland, but that of German not that much. Spanish should be rather popular and it is a relatively easy language too. Also, some applicants from Ireland may actually have chosen Irish.

    Given all the above, it appears that the situation, with a low preference for the French/German combo makes sense…

  29. sebastian

    @belinda: You seem to find the EU boring, yet you have registered for a concours. I hope you aware of the fact that you will need to study a lot of possibly boring details on how everything works etc. just in order to pass the preselection tests? Anyways, Brussels is certainly a great place, so if you are looking for a change of scenery, why not. Translators/Lawyer-Linguist though very often work in Luxembourg. You could also try the various law-firms in Brussels? Might be easier and happen much quicker than getting recruited, even if you passed the concours and sit and wait on your reserve list.

  30. belinda502

    It may have been the first empire created without shedding blood and I think that is because the average person (from where I come from anyway ) finds the whole concept of Europe and its institutions so boring that with a few exceptions they have just stood by while the empire (through various treaties etc) was created and accepted the all finanicial handouts in the early years. That’s largely what we did in Ireland. But I take your point, Europe is an impressive achievement.

    To Sebastian, I am tired of language courses as they represent a sterile environment. You just sit in a class absorb what is given to you and that is it. I never get the chance to use my languages in my current job which is straightfoward private client legal work, probate, conveyancing, litigation. Whereas Brussels (from reading the blog here sounds like a very interesting community with lots of different nationalities).

    To Frustrated: have you succeeded in getting appointed ?

  31. Frustrated

    @ Belinda,

    I did it 1) For the money, which isn’t exceptionally good, but there’s no risk attached to the salary… place won’t go broke and as far as I understood it, you would have to swagger drunkenly down the corridor waving your privates at the HoU before you get sacked.

    2) To counter all those eurocrates constantly telling other folk that “everyone can participate in the exams and that they are very difficult”.

    I found out the exams are pretty easy, that you won’t get a job if you have a certain nationality/gender and no friends on the inside and that waiting (in vain) for several years is considered normal in eurocratia.

    The only thing I got out of it is that now I can start telling off eurocrats as I’ve learened a great deal about the maddening ineffeciency/nepotism/simony… of the place.

  32. Sorina

    @belinda502
    I am definetly fascinated by the EU. Of course, it can be criticised, like any other organisation, but on the whole I think it is a great achievement. As somebody said, it is the first empire created without shedding blood.
    When I decided to give it a try, money was not at all the first argument.

  33. sebastian

    @belinda502: I am indeed very much fascinated by the EU. I think otherwise I would not have gone through the ordeal my concours was. If the potential money is your main motivation, I don’t think that this is the ideal starting point. And to learn more languages? There are courses for that, you know…

  34. belinda502

    Thanks for replies. This concours is for those who are fluent in Irish and have a legal qualification. I was fluent in Irish and have nearly qualified as a lawyer but I could not get excited about EU Law and the EU which comes accross to me as a world ruled by bureaucrats not personalities which provides sinecures for retiring policiticians or for those who have cooked their goose in their own country once too often like Peter Mandelson. However I am very attracted by the money and the chance to use my languages in a legal area and have the opportunity to learn more languages as I understand that once you are employed these opportunities are offered as a matter of course. I probably already know the answer to this but am I being unrealistic? Is everyone else applying for a position fascinated by the EU?

  35. @ Viking

    No big deal.

    Cheers! 🙂

  36. viking

    Hi AD,
    You can find the linguistic requirements for this competition here (see page 3):
    http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:2007:250A:0001:0014:EN:PDF

    This should shed some light on the subject.
    I seems to me that you might have been misled a little by the scarce information provided in the post 1160.

    Anyhow, the subject is not that important that we should spend hours writing about it. And since the question in the post 1160 was probably asked out of curiosity and our answers can only be based on a guess, we might want to close our discussion here 🙂

  37. viking

    Well, the participants do not have to have English as their mother tongue, but they have to know it on the mother tongue level. They will translate into English from their C-languages.

    There might be people who can meet this requirement and yet have a different language then English as their mother tongue. I will not argue about that. So let’s say this competition is MOSTLY for Brits and Irish.

    The language combination required is nevertheless A+C+C, A being English.
    The question was why so few people have German AND French as their C-languages.
    My assumption is still the same (see comment 1163).

  38. @Viking

    The assumption that an English language translator is necessarily having it as a mother tongue is fallacious.

    The concours is NOT only for Brits and Irish…

  39. viking

    Well, as I understand it (but I might be wrong, of course):
    This concour is for English language translators = they have English as their mother tongue (their language A).

    “Option #1 (a. French & b. German)” =
    EN (language A), FR and DE (C-languages)
    “Option #2 (a. French/German & b. another language)” =
    EN (language A), FR or DE (not both as their first language C) and another official language as their second language C.

    Language C = a foreign language one only uses passively.

  40. Option 1 (for a non-native speaker) = Mother tongue (let’s say greek) + English + French + German. That’s 4 languages total.

    Option 2 (for a non-native speaker) = Mother tongue + English + French OR German. That’s 3 languages total.

    Or am I missing something?

  41. viking

    I don’t see why option 1 would require 3 passive languages. To me it seems that both options require 2 passive languages. It is only that the first one narrows the scope to DE/FR.
    The question why so few people know both DE and FR is interesting.
    I think that the answer might be that if someone has learnt FR the person adds one additional Romance language whereas it will be a Germanic language if the person has learnt German.
    OR
    German is so totally unpopular in Britain that nobody wants to learn it.

  42. Sorry, I mean option 1 = 3 non-native, while option 2 = 2 non-native.

  43. @ panagiotis

    I would think that it’s because most of the applicants are not french+german speakers, and thus few could count BOTH French and German as a primary source language, rather just English, either French or German, and their own language.

    Option 1 requires non native 4 languages (unless you’re German or French or British– then 3 languages + native tongue)

    Option 2 requires 3 languages. Two non-native and 1 native.

    Thus, the number of people who are fluent in 4, as opposed to 3, will be hugely different, as the numbers show.

    That’s how I read the numbers.

  44. panagiotis

    I wonder if anyone’s got a clue about this… How come that in concours EPSO/AD/100/07 (English-language translators) only 455 chose Option #1 (a. French & b. German) whereas 3447 (!!!) chose Option #2 (a. French/German & b. another language)? Why such a difference?

  45. panagiotis

    @ belinda

    In my case it was 4 months.

    Good luck!

  46. For me it was two months from being admitted into the competition to the invitation to the written tests (no mcq). Then another 1.5 months until the written tests.

    So, from admission into the competition to the first tests — 3.5 months.

  47. Sorina

    @belinda

    I think it depends on the competition. In my case, it was 3 months.

  48. @ Belinda502

    I applied on 29/03/2007 for the CAST27 competition and sat the pre-selection test on 12/07/2007.

    So it can take rather long sometimes.

  49. belinda502

    I have made an electronic application and followed up with a hard copy to apply for a lawyer lingust position (AD7). I understand that the first part of the recruitment process is a pre-selection test by mcq. I was merely wondering how long it takes after registration for a concours for the pre-selection test to be held.

  50. @ Belinda

    I don’t really understand what you’re asking. Have you registered for a concours? Have you applied for a temporary post? Did you pass a concours and apply for a specific post? What?

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