Pressure grows for broader nationality mix among EU staff

Source: Euractiv

The Commission is under growing pressure to recruit staff from a broader mix of EU countries, amid fears the executive’s civil service risks becoming permanently skewed towards Italians, Belgians and Greeks.

Piotr Serafin, the commissioner for public administration, launched new measures this month intended to close the gap for under-represented countries, including Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Czechia, Austria and Luxembourg.

“There is no guarantee that these are enough to really bridge the gap,” a diplomat from a Benelux country said. “Action still needs to be happening yesterday. The problem is still very, very severe and we still don’t know if this is going to solve it in the near future.”

National ambassadors on Friday chewed over Serafin’s new steps, with low-representation countries pushing for more stringent steps, including quota-based hiring.

A Danish paper, circulated for discussion at the meeting and seen by Euractiv, floated unspecified “further actions” if the new measures don’t yield significant results.

Under Serafin’s plan, any part of the EU’s machinery will have to interview at least one candidate from an under-represented EU country for every job, and give preference to a candidate from those countries when two applicants are tied.

A 2025 EU document containing 2024 figures from different institutions, seen by Euractiv, shows the imbalance has persisted despite years of pledges to fix it. “What you see especially when you look forward to people retiring at higher levels [is] that for certain member states the situation is actually going to be worse in the long term,” the Benelux diplomat said.

While eurocrats from southern states – particularly Italy and Greece – continue to rise in number, far fewer northern Europeans work in the Commission and its agencies. Dutch, Swedish, and Danish nationals remain markedly under-represented.

“The Commission is doing a very poor job,” a Nordic diplomat said. “We are actually in a worse place than when we first became aware of this issue.” 

That comes despite the Commission drafting a new strategy for rectifying the national gaps in 2022.

Under-representation is most acute at entry-level, and has grown since the Commission began tracking figures in 2017.

That year, ten EU countries were under-represented – Germany and France included. By 2021, the number had risen to 13; last year it stood at 12 as France had caught up, although Germans are still at half their target representation.

Unsurprisingly, Belgium, where most EU officials are based, is most overrepresented. While the Commission recommends 3.1% of staff be Belgian, they account for 8.5% of personnel across the Parliament, Commission, Council, and the EU’s diplomatic service.

By the end of 2024, roughly 16% of entry-level officials were Italian – far above the Commission’s 11% benchmark. Greece, with 6.3%, was also twice its target of 3.1%. France, Spain, and Germany were faring at 12%, 11.4%, and 7.9%, respectively. Germany, especially, is far off its recommended mark of 13.8%.

“The reasons for under representation vary,” a Commission spokesperson told Euractiv. “These can be specific to a certain Member State, for example relating to economic factors such as a strong national job market.”

Broken pipeline

A major cause of the imbalance is the EU’s main public entry exam, which hasn’t run effectively since 2019. This is the primary test that EU civil servants must pass to get a long-term job in the Commission.

Time and again, candidates for the so-called “concours“ were prevented from selection as the process was derailed by technical issues with the Commission’s recruitment system. Earlier this year, almost 10,000 candidates for translator posts had to retake their exam because the online platform allowed multiple correct answers when there should only have been one.

The EU’s recruitment system “can be seen as complex and cumbersome,” the Danish paper says

With public competitions stalled, candidates increasingly rely on short-term contracts inside the Commission in the hope of gaining access to the internal competitions, which still take place and can lead to a permanent job.

Three diplomats told Euractiv this dynamic favours nationalities already well embedded in the institutions: existing officials can recommend compatriots for temporary roles, helping them gain entry to the internal concours that – unlike the public ones – is still running.

This can create a self-reinforcing cycle, where countries with more staff already inside the Commission bring in more new recruits, exacerbating the imbalance.

See you in court

A ruling from the EU’s top court could soon bring major implications for recruitment. Spain, Italy, and France are challenging the European Parliament’s move to open recruitment drives that are limited to certain under-represented nationalities, such as Austrians, arguing quotas are anathema to the merit-based hiring rules enshrined in EU rules.

“We think that we will win the court case,” said senior Parliament official Ellen Robson last week. More than ten countries have supported Parliament’s move to launch nationality-specific competitions.

The Commission is not party to the case, but if Parliament prevails, pressure will mount on it to follow suit.

(cz)

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