Cheap labour, or the chance of a lifetime?

Date: 09/11/1995

Largely unheard of outside of Brussels, the stagiaire scheme is the fastest way to get ahead for Europe's bright young things. Michael Mann reports.

ANYONE wondering how to launch him or herself on to the European Union decision-making ladder could do a lot worse than consider the European Commission's five-month stagiaire scheme.

Just ask European Commissioners Mario Monti, Manuel Marín, or Karel Van Miert.

All three are products of the stagiaire system and Van Miert actually began his EU career as a trainee in the very department of which he is now the head, Directorate-General IV, responsible for competition policy.

Popular perceptions of stagiaires, among those outside the rarefied atmosphere of Brussels who have actually heard of the scheme, tend to fall into two camps.

One school of thought regards them as a happy-go-lucky band of young, bright and privileged Europeans, enjoying a five-month party before the serious world of work and career can be avoided no longer.

To others, they are strange individuals who actually chose to spend five months of their lives pen-pushing in a large and impenetrable bureaucracy.

But as far as Wolfgang Kraus, head of the Bureau des Stages, is concerned, the 750 or so young people from around the world who take part in each scheme are the torch-bearers for a new, brighter Europe.

“It's amazing to think that these people's grandfathers fought wars against each other. Now they are working together. The stage does have a political purpose. We aim to pass on our hopes to working people of the future, and get rid of prejudice,” says Kraus, head of the bureau for the last 15 years.

Yet even Kraus, now nearing the end of his tenure in office, accepts that the scheme is running into problems, because “we suffer from our own success”.

From an initial intake of less than 20 stagiaires in 1960, the stage has grown and there are now over 750 people on each of the two schemes the Commission runs every year.

One former stagiaire recalls colleagues working in a store-room due to lack of space, while others suggest that jobs are being created simply to keep trainees busy.

Yet despite the number of extra stagiaires now being taken on board, most insist that they carry out genuinely useful tasks, although one former stagiaire in DGI (the Directorate-General for external relations) admitted there was “an element of cheap labour” in the scheme.

One member of the Comité des Stages, the five-strong group elected to organise social and cultural events says: “It did have the reputation for being a five-month party. But today's stagiaires are more sensible and are being given far more responsibility than they expected.”

But the fact that each stage attracts some 10,000 applicants and that grants are only available for 450 people each time - with the remaining 300 successful applicants working unpaid - is seen as an indication that things may be getting out of hand.

Officials are considering where the training scheme should go in the future. But Kraus is giving little away.

“We need to reform so that quality does not decline. We are in danger of undermining our image,” he says, but does not go beyond suggesting that one way of reducing the problem would be to encourage more people to gain their experience of the European ideal at institutions like the College of Europe in Bruges.

Another Commission official believes that directorates-general should give the bureau a shopping list of the kind of workers they actually need, rather than undertaking the biannual trawl through the famous 'blue book' - a shortlist of the applicants deemed most suitable for the job - to pick out likely candidates.

Those cynical about whether things will ever change put it more simply. “Basically the Commission can sit back and let things roll on, because so many people are desperate to get on the stage,” said one.

A common complaint among those who have been on the scheme, and more particularly of those who have failed to gain a place, is the degree of nepotism they claim is involved in gaining a placement.

“There are a lot of instances where a department is forced to take in a 'parachutaire' because it owes a particular Cabinet or whoever a favour,” one former stagiaire said, referring to the widespread practice of giving the sons and daughters of Commission officials preference over other candidates.

The fact that the bureau is keen to encourage stagiaires from all over the world further restricts the places available for young hopefuls from member states.

But Kraus, described by one former stagiaire as “the archetypal Euro-enthusiast and an incredible idealist”, defends the bureau's policy.

“We have intensified our programme to attract people from Norway and Switzerland for example. Then we can use former stagiaires from these two as messengers for the idea of European integration,” he said. “But it's not brain-washing.”

But more cynical stagiaires are in no doubt that the scheme is indeed intended as a brain-washing exercise. “It's purely and simply a PR exercise and begins with a three-day seminar on how wonderful Europe is,” says one cynical observer. But she freely admits that the presence of a five-month stage on her curriculum vitae has done her career prospects nothing but good.

For all their readiness to criticise, it is hard to find anybody who does not feel that the experience has been of considerable benefit to them both personally and professionally.

Former stagiaires now working within the Commission, in EU law firms or as assistants to MEPs, are convinced that they would never have been offered their posts had they not done a stage. “The majority of people apply for a stage because of the prestige involved. Officially it doesn't help you if you go on to do the Commission concours (the entrance exam for would-be EU civil servants) but it certainly doesn't hurt either,” said one.

Although formally against the rules, stories also abound of heads of unit clearing the way for particularly useful trainees to be kept on at the end of their stage, despite long waiting-lists of people who have successfully completed the official concours.

The idea of enhancing future job prospects evidently plays an important role in persuading people to take part in the scheme.

Why else would over 300 recent graduates work for five months without any pay in return? Even those who do get a paid stage receive less than 25,000 Belgian francs a month, hardly sufficient to survive in an expensive town such as Brussels.

The low level of pay encourages the obvious accusation that it is an élitist scheme, weighted heavily in favour of the wealthy and those from families already involved in the institutions.

The effort involved in getting through the highly-competitive selection procedure is notorious. But nationals of some member states, particularly those not attached to the European mainland, find the type of lobbying involved culturally difficult.

“It's a totally foreign concept for the British in particular. They still imagine that you hand in your application and wait politely to be selected. Any hassling of officials is still regarded as rude,” says one Briton who managed to finally conquer his qualms.

One particularly-determined candidate claims to have called for lobbying assistance from her local MEP, the Cabinet of her country's Commissioner and to have arranged 32 separate interviews with different officials before the selection procedure even began.

A glance through the 'blue book' at the calibre of applicants makes it perfectly clear why such efforts are crucial and why the scheme still enjoys such a high profile.