The results of the concours for administrators are now out, and – surprise, surprise – I did not manage to pass. Here’s the extract of the letter:
The selection board for the above competition has now finished marking the pre-selection tests in which you participated. I regret to inform you that although the marks you obtained in these tests were above or equal to the pass mark, you were not amongst the top 630 candidates.
Point B.1 of the competition notice stipulates that only those candidates with the 630 highest marks in the pre-selection tests would be asked to submit a full application with a view to their possible admission to the competition.
Your marks are as follows (1):
Test a): 38.333 /60 (pass mark 30)
Test b): 15.263 /20 (pass mark 10)
Test c): 30.769 /40 (pass mark 20)Total: 84.365/ 120
For your information, the candidates who obtained the 630 highest combined scores had at least 92.611 points.
I would add that the Selection Board’s decision does not preclude you from taking part in any future competitions organised by the European Personnel Selection Office.
It’s beyond me how one can get 15.263 / 20 when there were 40 questions, but anyway, c’est la vie. All the best to all the geeks who know who won the Sakharov prize in the year X or other equally useful everyday facts.
FILE DOWNLOADS
Blog commenter ‘viking’ has made some new test files available for download, and he had also supplied the manual for electronic Reserve Lists. Some additional test files have been provided by Sorina (see comment #1003) – download 342kb, ZIPped. Enjoy!
SOCIAL NETWORKS
If anyone is a member of Facebook there’s the ‘So I won’t be a Commission official’ Facebook Group, and the EU Integration Traveler IQ challenge (you need to add the Traveler IQ Facebook application) – a more fun way to revise for the concours…
NOTE
Due to such an enormous number of comments here I have had to divide the comments function. The latest few hundred comments are below, and all the older comments are archived here. All should work technically now.
Everybody is entitled to have their own opinion. I was extremely enthusiastic about the idea of working for the EU institutions and now, having worked for them for several years, having seen two different working places, good times and bad times, lots of administration etc. etc. I am still enthusiastic.
The Commission is a great employer. My personal opinion. I would never want to go back to private sector media business which is where I worked for before. I was a freelancer, too much negative stress, pressure and not enough reward.
Where I work now there can be much pressure as well, but at least there is a reward. I am being treated a fair way, and the staff regulations apply to me just as they apply to all of us who work for the institutions. It is fair.
In short, I am really happy here. Maybe because I am AST and not AD, and the decisions I take are of less importance, and need to be justified towards fewer people.
Again, everybody is entitled to their own opinion.
Do you this proverb?
With foxes you must play the fox.
So once you enter the eu system you will just become a part of it. No matter how much you complain about it you will be just like them and you will stop caring about transparent recruitment. Why would you once you are in?
*
You know that there are many stereotypes e.g. about Germans being organised, Italians not transparent, Scandinavians transparent and Ombudsman creators etc.
But you know what? In the Eu they play the same games. I know of an unfair situation (started by someone from southern eu member state) and someone from scandinavia got angry and intervened in an unfair way too. He/she would not do it in his/her own country, I guess. but here in the eu, yes all rules apply. it is sometimes tragic and awful.
I agree with someone who said there is too much frustration on this forum. Indeed, as one of you said, EU system is chaotic and without control. They created epso to have clean hands and say to the world “we are having this excellent eu recruitment system”. But in fact, as someone said, the system is being pulled in all possible directions by those who can do it.
On the other hand, anyone who is trying to access the system is surely doing some research in advance. Consequently, one must be aware of what is going on. And you have a choice – either you give up the chaotic eu system or you try as long as you can and by all means you can (lobbying etc.). So I guess that people like elated knew in advance how hard it might be to get in, but they anyways wanted to get an eu place, so they kept trying. But why frustration along the way? There should not be any as you were aware of the chaos in advance.
As I said, being aware of the eu chaotic system, one should reasonably give it up and look for a better employment with transparency etc. But does such a system exist? I doubt it as all systems are created by people and people are very, very far from perfect. And they will never create a perfect system. Can’t you grasp it?
Is anyone here, like me, waiting for the results of 145/09?
Well, I am just getting a bit nervous as the results should be out soon. Who knows, maybe I’ll have luck and will be on one more list? 🙂
It would be really good as this one will be better than the other two that I am on.
Hi all
I am happy I finally came across this blog…I am reading all the posts and they are useful.
I have been looking for sysper vacancies for a long time, but I was never able to find them…
… would you mind sharing with me too? (my address: gian_petr2@yahoo.com)
@service gratuit for danja
May you send me too the sysper vacancies at
carina_oslo@yahoo.com
Thanks a lot.
@Elated
Hi elated, one question: do you really see that the candidates from EU-10 or now rather EU-12 are getting recruited easier? Perhaps there are just rumors about easier recruitment and in reality they are on equal foot with the candidates from all other member states?
??,
😉
You’re forgetting the “special” oral-only concours for cabintetards-to-be-parachuted. Half of the former commissioner’s village is in need of a job.
“. To have worked with the specific administrative IT tools used at the commission, and there are at least half a dozen up to 20, depending on your type of job, does take time and not everybody has the proven ability to quickly adapt to a totally new and very demanding / strict / non-flexible work setting (now I am speaking not only IT wise).”
Any multinational nowadays is at the very least as bad when it comes to various IT applications… ever tried getting a contract signed between two SEC-listed companies after 4PM on a Friday when all the sec’ies left? There’s nothing special to those EC IT tools (unless you think an office add-in button is some kind of mystic wizardry).
I have never had any questions as regards IT-savvy btw. Most working skills questions were about “can you handle the maddening inefficiency, unwieldy procedures, milkyway-long command chains?” Apparently they have all been briefed to accept “I’m a networker” as the proper answer.
Seriously, it’s a damn shame they don’t make more use of their AD reserve lists. I know some brilliant people on there. Some of them, surprise-surprise, are no longer interested. So now, a few years down the road, we have these highflyers in the private sector all thinking the EC is zoo run by a bunch of nepotistic inbred monkeys.
Well done, way to go.
@cosnic
Your work experience in Helsinki is a _great_ asset! This is probably why they chose to call you for the interview among all the other people on the list, and you should stress the fact that you liked living in Finland during the interview.
In my case it was the same, lots of people in the list and I got called for an interview in a country with extreme weather conditions because I have been living there for some months before, and because I speak the language.
One last advice, be prepared that they will switch between languages during the interview, even though they might not previously announce it. If you stated in your CV that you speak little Finnish, they will ask you some of the questions in Finnish. Not the heavy questions, but rather easygoing conversational questions like ‘Tell me about your past experience of living in Helsinki, do you like the city’…. to test your language skills. In my case they asked their questions in four different languages in the interview, all the languages that I mentioned in the CV. In my case they were surprisingly friendly and some panel members even smiled 😉 when they heard me stuttering in their exotic language.
Again, it is such an advantage for you that you proved you can cope with Finnish culture! Be calm, self confident, proactive and you will get the job
@elated
Are you by chance the ex-“frustrated”? 🙂
@ContractAgentRevealing
Many many thanks for your message and your advice.
Yes you are right, I never worked for the Institutions, am in a AD 5 reserve lists and probably will see it expiring before being hired! :-\
I have started refreshing my knowledge of REACH regulation (“registration” in this field should mean the dossiers companies importing or manufacturing products with chemicals have to submit to the Agency) and for sure will put into practice your suggestion on the IT/administration side.
Trying to “always look on the bright side of life” :-D, have already worked in Helsinki and really liked it, even if it was during the winter!
So, in the unlikely case I make it, I will virtually offer you a beer 😉
Thanks again, also for bringing some optimism, as this forum is recently quite depressing!! 😀
“all this is not fair, it’s even discriminatory!”
wake up and smell the coffee. just some recent examples, internal TA concours for EU10 countries only, EU wide concours where suspiciously small number of EU10 countries candidates passed, ‘special’ AD9+ concours for ‘favoured’ temporary agents, recently two secretaries of a very high official recruited at grades AST11
the system is totally out of control, it’s being pulled in many different directions, all for the gain of group or other. no one is in charge.
Come here only for the salary – in practice that means EU10 – or for personal reasons. If you come here with good grades, expecting something, it’s just a question of how long you need until you realise you are wasting your time.
@cosnic
That’s a tricky one. I read between the lines that you never worked for the Institutions before. Then it might be really difficult to pass… Not because they want someone to have worked for the Institutions before, but simply for qualifications reasons. To have worked with the specific administrative IT tools used at the commission, and there are at least half a dozen up to 20, depending on your type of job, does take time and not everybody has the proven ability to quickly adapt to a totally new and very demanding / strict / non-flexible work setting (now I am speaking not only IT wise). So, if it is really the case and you have zero experience with the various registration software in use at the Commission then the safest bet is to go to the interview with total determination to prove to them that you are willing and able to learn it fast. Tell them that you are not scared of huge IT applications, of fixed rules, of learning a LOT of things in a short time. Maybe you can give them an example for a job at which in the past you had to adapt and learn very quickly as well, and it did not drive you crazy?
In the interview with people who are complete newcomers the panel usually tests whether the person is emotionally stable enough to adapt to a totally different work environment, and has his mind set on working with a positive, proactive attitude = not giving up fast. You know, there are people giving up or they become weirdos being far away from home in a hostile IT environment, especially in a cold country without sun…. I can guarantee a large part of the test will be focussing on your mental strength.
Unfortunately I don’t personally know anyone at ECHA who I could ask which kind of registration your job refers to. For sure it is part of the administration, but which? You could be employed for logistics material registration or financial procurement registration or mail registration or it could be a job in which you need to feed a database with infos about chemical products to be registered for the European market…
I searched the Sysper2 generic job description library but no result. It might be our colleagues in Helsinki invented their own job title and description, fitted to their needs. As you may know, ECHA is an agency and they are therefore more free to draw up their own rules than a DG.
On the bright side, if you pass the test and interview, and provided you like the idea of living in Finland, then you won a lottery ticket because a CA in an agency is allowed to get his contract extended, and the second extension has to be with indefinite duration, ergo you would be offered a lifetime job. Good luck! And buy an UV lamp to compensate the lack of sunlight in Helsinki!
to Carina
#M7, the EU institutions are not private companies,each of us pay a contribution every day to the EU budget.
In the national public administration, there is not a balance between permanent and temporary, I am sorry! There are permanent staff, young trainees and external experts (for a few projects).
Well, I have to disagree with you since in fact, I am a civil servant in my country and the existence of temporary staff is a fact, and recognized by law. The problem in my opinion is that this staff is supposed to exist only for short/mid term projects or periods but the fact is that sometimes they even retire after more than 20 years serving as temporary.
Utopia is there, we do have to deal with ral life!
@m7 >>I do think that EU bodies do need both permanent hands but also temporary/contract agents staff, they do have to keep the balance between a permanent and a short term percentage of vacancies, the same as happens at private sector big companies.
M7, the EU institutions are not private companies,each of us pay a contribution every day to the EU budget.
In the national public administration, there is not a balance between permanent and temporary, I am sorry! There are permanent staff, young trainees and external experts (for a few projects).
@PB never let a job before you sign a contract for a EU institution, I am really sorry for you:(
@AD, read “How to circumvent EU recruitment rules” related to our last dialogue
Everywhere you look, if you want to know how to become a European civil servant – that is, a permanent official in a EU institution – you will always find the same answer: you have to pass a competition organized by EPSO.
Well, it’s not true. Everybody who works in a EU institution knows it’s not true.
Of course, EPSO competitions are often a nightmare, and I understand very well why non-permanent employees try to lobby as much as they can for “internal competitions” and any other ways of avoiding EPSO. Still, all this is not fair, it’s even discriminatory! You cannot ask one candidate to pass a one-year series of exams for a certain position, and spare other candidate from doing so. It’s like asking, for the same position, one candidate to have a university degree plus 5 years of experience, and another candidate to have nothing but a Bachelor Degree (so that at the end you choose the one with nothing but the Bachelor Degree…). You cannot make different rules for “outsiders” and “prefered” internal candidates. Not when you are a EU institution that claims promoting non-discrimination and equality of chances.
http://europe2.ning.com/profiles/blogs/how-to-circumvent-recruitment
@danja
Dear Madam,
the requested information has been sent to you.
should you need any further help in the future, do not hesitate to contact us again.
Your service gratuit for danja
Many of you mention getting a list of Sysper vacancies and then applying, instead of sending random/spontaneous applications… But what to do when I don’t know anyone inside to send me those vacancies??
Would anyone of you guys, PLEASE send the latest list to me??
You can email me at: danja at mail.org
Thx fd,
This blog with all its many entries now exists… I only wished it had five years ago, would have saved me a lot of “frustration” 😉 along the way. So all you young and cheerful ones, read about our Dantesque quest…. may all hope have abandoned you, should you still choose to enter then.
(and don’t forget to thank Jon, this place is a gem)
check this board every once in a while – same questions different people. AD and elated have it right, they are doing you laureates a service so stop dissing them. bottom line is recruitment is pretty much unfair and random, except that studying hard increases your chances. it’s no better if/when you get in, as it doesnt matter how hard you work, you can’t get promoted quickly enough and senior positions are ‘nationalised’.
bottom line, come here if the ad equivalent salary in your state administration at 30 years old is <2,000e net/month. otherwise stay away.
“I am a EU_10 laureate of an AD5 competition with international professional experience, living abroad for more than 10 years and still waiting in the reserve list to be contacted by the EC since January 2009.”
Well I am EU10 as well and have been on the reserve list since 2007, having started the comps in 2006. At first I thought getting on the reserve lists would be the hard part and that I would get recruited within the year. I ended up taking a crappy job that I didn’t like, because I thought I wasn’t going to work there for too long. However I’ve not been recruited since I got on the list. Boredom and stress got so bad at my job that I had to quit and now am unemployed, living off my savings and looking for a new job. I am hoping that this year there will be some vacancies at the EC. Does anyone know how is it looking with vacancies at the EC?
Hello everyone,
I have been invited in February for an interview at the ECHA in Helsinki.
The position is Contract Ageng (FG III), “Registration Assistant”.
Has anybody undergone a similar test in the past? Can you share your experience on what to expect, which subjects are more likely to be covered etc.?
From what is written in the invitation and the vacancy notice, it seems the interview will focus non only on technical aspects but there will also be a big administrative part.
Also, before the 30 minutes interview, a 2 hours “test” is scheduled (which is quite different from the competitions I attended in the past).
Thanks in advance!
@Elated
Yes, happy.
@user2008
Commissioner Kroes will definitely need to refresh her staff as she will now be dealing with digital agenda of the EU (new portofolio). Otherwise, I would not expect miracles.
Hi all,
Although I got sick of all this EU occupation stuff, as I have already gained the right to look for and wait for a EU job, my new slight and miserable hopes now come out of the running new Commissioners selection procedure. They might probably consequently decide to refresh their staff a little. 🙂
So, Happy New Year and good luck to all of us, pesky blind laureates!
To Carina:
your hope or mine doesn’t need to be the final ending.
I do think that EU bodies do need both permanent hands but also temporary/contract agents staff, they do have to keep the balance between a permanent and a short term percentage of vacancies, the same as happens at private sector big companies.
It is only what i think.
@Pseudo Nym
I hope that CAs and TAs contracts will finish as soon as possible and only the reserve lists to be used for the employment.This is my only hope to obtain a job in the EC.
I am sure that for the EU_10, the CAs’s contracts will end this year, after 4/ 6 years and may the EC employ the laureates from the real reserve lists!!Enough is enough!
Will the new competition laurates only replace permanent staff or also CAs and TAs as well? Surely if new staff are recruited every year then there is no need for contract staff any more?
Jepson, once they are extending your reserve list with 2 years and the others with 1, that’s when you really should start worrying… I’m not saying anything more.
Warts and all, EC HR is an ugly motherf*cker… I wish they would have just said to the accession countries that they can have their quota (as also for instance Spain had… lots of officials that simply got transferred from Spanish gov to EC in the 80ies), but that they should then do the selection part themselves and internally… it’s been real bad publicity for the EC and has caused a lot of bad feelings among (future) colleagues… nothing good to it.
@Jepson
I read today in the OJ
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/JOHtml.do?uri=OJ:C:2009:321:SOM:EN:HTML
ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURES, Council
2009/C 321/10
Extension of the period of validity of the shortlists of suitable candidates
about a lot of old reserve lists extended.
It will not be fair if EPSO ot the Council will not extend our lists for almost 3 years on. You’ll read in the OJ about lists which have been extended since 2000… My God! for 10 years for EU_15 and for the new EU_10 only 2 years ?
I do not want to seem too pesky, but there is not the same unit of measure for all the European laureates and I think that the European Ombudsman and the Court of Justice/Court of EU staff will be assalted by the last laureates:(
@AD
is it true that a CA can become a permanent in the institutions? right?
I am on a list of CA/2008 secretaries too 🙂
I took place in the competition to enrich my EU CV 😉 let’s say, I passed with 90%, but really that was an exam for everybody, with no limits of secretary laureates in the list. Maybe it was organized by someone in the leader position to arrange a secretary in a Delegation or to find a place for a relative.
I was contacted twice from that reserve list for a secretary position, but I am not interested in this kind of job.
I was told by a friend that a French girl who did not pass the secretary exam for a permanent post as a French mother tongue and who had worked in the EC for a few years, after passing this CA/2008 secretary competition became permanent. Is it right? If she was so good she could have pass the permanent staff French secretary competition, but she found this “black hole” in the EU-EPSO recruitment system to become suitable for a permanent position and to take a place of a real laureate.
There are many who benefit of all this strange recruitment system and maybe this is the reason why the ordinary people have not so much respect for the EU institutions.
It was a lot of time I did not find so many new posts on this great forum per laureates.
So thanks to AD for the debate, even if ‘controversial’. BTW, eastern friends, honestly it (‘pesky’) seems to me an ironic nickname for we laureates (eastern and western ones) since we have to be so ‘proactive’.
I was wondering if the secret meaning of the shortage of posts on this forum could be that many of us are getting in. Is it possible? From my side, something seems to proceed for a CA position (even if I am on AD res. lists and the post is on the other side of the world).
At this point, however, I am a bit concerned about the reserve list duration.
Do you believe that the reserve list approved in 2009 will not be prolonged?
It would seem a very discriminatory decision, some very old reslists of 2002 have already extended to December 2011.
@Carina
As I said, in agencies, sometimes. In the Institutions – no.
AD
@ AD
>>A TA that has not passed a concours will not become permanent.
It’s not true. I know someone which entered in an Agency as a TA without an exam and became permanent, because a few agencies, the old ones, have the right to do it.
A friend of mine, as a CA, became permanent after a few years in that position, too in BXL.
There are more and more cases, these are a few which I know.
@ Carina,
A TA that has not passed a concours will not become permanent. The only way to become permanent (aside from some agencies) is to pass a competition, be it internal or external.
I’m not going to address whether the Insititution’s HR policy is right or not. It is what it is, warts and all.
@ A
I think the vast majority of readers understood, while a few failed to and jumped at the chance to indulge in some self-pity, scapegoating and flaming.
But, to each his own. 🙂
@AD>>>Carina should be aware that her chances of being recruited are MUCH slimmer without any inside-EU experience — she should seize the opportunity to get inside BEFORE the new competitions produce laureates, because when the competitions go EU-27, the chances of winning a comp are GREATLY reduced simply because of the mathematics.
Do you think is it right that a TA/CA will become a permanent staff without an external exam ( let’s forget the internal ones are sized for them 😉 )and a laureate must wait for years…
If this is the EU- EPSO strategy, a TA to become sooner or later a permanent using the internal tricky games and more laureates in the reserve lists for nothing, I say thank you!
for the rest I will come back later
So you think that your message was smart, but readers too simple-minded and did not get you?
I don’t know what readers say, but I think you should rather express yourself better.
@ A
By the way, jumping to conclusions and calling people idiots simply because you a) fail to understand or b) disagree, is a perfect exampl of being “pesky”. I’m not using the word that one would in less-polite conversation… 😉
If you’re planning on working in the Institutions, you should learn at least a modicum of politness. 😉 At least for the first 9 months if you get a permanent gig.
AD
Wow. I can see that a number of readers are not up-to-snuff on the English language and were unable to read into the irony that I had in mind. In your masochistic rush to be victimized, you failed to notice that I noted that I am also “pesky”, i.e. a “central or eastern” European. Perhaps I should have dumbed-down my post to make it simpler to understand. 🙂 The referencing of CEEs as “pesky” is manifold: 1. being construed as being “in the way” of EU-15s getting jobs, 2) having a different work ethic than “old” EU officials (i.e. more anglo work-style, as opposed to the franco-work style), 3) being quick to feel victimized and then going balls-out to “defend their rights” (but basing arguments on emotion rather than the Staff regs), and then being unable to convert opportunity to success when the chance arises (the internal Commission competitions).
I’m certainly not afraid of competition from fellow CEEs, nor from “old” EU members. I was simply offering some advice. Carina should be aware that her chances of being recruited are MUCH slimmer without any inside-EU experience — she should seize the opportunity to get inside BEFORE the new competitions produce laureates, because when the competitions go EU-27, the chances of winning a comp are GREATLY reduced simply because of the mathematics. There are many thousands of EU-15 chomping at the bit to participate in the competitions. During this recession, a LOT of talent is looking for stable, long-term employment. The Institutions provide that. There will be very tough competition.
As to quotas — they’re pretty much already filled. Granted, much of the quota-filling was done via TAs, quite a few of which internal-comped in, or because they had passed an earlier comp, had an easier time of being recruited.
Considering the quality of reaction to my advice, I will, in the future, consider carefully if I should bother. Self-victimization and soap-box moralizing are a tedious read 🙂
AD
Perhaps AD just means to wait until Central and Eastern Europeans are properly represented in the instutions, national quotas filled etc, so then there is a “level playing field” for candidates- ie being recruited entirely on merit, and not worrying whether you are EU 15 nationality or the preferred EU 10+2.
@ AD:
“The first point would be “to clean the slate”, i.e. get rid of those pesky eastern and central Europeans that want EU jobs.”
Dear Ad,
By chance, are you affraid of competition with “those pesky eastern and central Europeans that want EU jobs”? And why, if so? Because emerging markets are more vital and competitive? Because they’re working more and better? If so, you have no other chance, but to follow. And very fairly, with this kind of discriminatory statements your place is not on the forum. What do you say if we get rid of you (using your speech)?
fair enough.
Colleagues are nice, surviving the kafkaesque jungle of procedures is less hard than I had imagined, attendance to high-profile meetings/dealing with important dossiers is granted quite early in the game, plenty of time for family, friends and hobbies in this setting….
however
the level of expertise of your average official is disapointingly low. This is probably because the HR side of the story is a complete dog’s dinner… CA,TA,SNE,Stagiaires, officials switching jobs every 3/4 years… It is nigh impossible to acquire content-specific expertise given those settings and it shows. The only durable expertise some-one internally could get is in EU procedures, which probably explains the importance given to those procedures… Also, people aren’t extremely hard-working and lots of people seem to be involved in “secondary” activities (communicating about yoga classes…).
As I said… I’m in it for the money-work balance, but now I am not sure whether this isn’t too relaxed for me… I guess the key to a succesful long term stay it’s about finding a line of work you enjoy whilst managing the kafka side of things. I also guess given some reconaissance of the terrain (finding out who is doing what) chances are one might find such a spot under the sun (and time to reconnoiter one has).
Happy?
common knowledge! (not ‘common truth’)
What mystery? Isn’t it common truth that institutions – once created – are to be enlarged and not vice versa? They grow, Grow in size.
And, Elated, what about my question to which you said you would come back in December? Have you become lazy over EU coffee? All right, I understand and give you extra time. Your feedback is still awaited. 🙂
To me the main mystery is why we won’t see any cutbacks in epso’s current size. That administrative body was primarily created to manage the 2004 accession wave. Now we are going to get annual AD comps (any-one who has seen the commission’s recruitment practices knows this is way too optimistic, every 3 years would be more on the mark). The only reason we are going to burn this money, my friends, is for epso to maintain a perception of usefulness. Never mind your little reserve lists, they’ll be shredded and tossed on the bonfire of epso’s vanity.
You may allow yourselves a brief period of mourning now.
@AD
I could not leave a permanent job for a TA job, having a family it’s a big responsability. I am sorry but I am not so “pesky” as you mean even if I am eastern born 😉 anyway, let’s change the subject, maybe it was a language mistake of AD, I can not believe that people with such a mentality are working in the European institutions. Is it so important the origin of a person or his/her capacities? I feel more European than eastern or western, being my mom from the West Europe.
I still hope that the reserve lists and the new recruitment policies will work even in my case, hope not to be to optimistic 😉
Darcy,
I noticed my mistake and corrected it (see above; if necessary you might also see professional help :-). Sorry again.
Let me repeat please – if AD persona really thinks what it writes, this is perhaps the core problem with the EU institutions.
A
You need a professional help (an optician?). That comment is written below mine.
Just like you, I am one of those “pesky” CEE, too…. and I love to annoy!
so the solution could be e.g. getting rid of ADs, then letting more newcomers in (Turkey, Croatia, Montenegro are all welcome – it would be great when they join)!