ECB gets off to a flying start on recruitment

Date: 21/05/1998

By Tim Jones

THE European Central Bank has launched a drive to recruit 100 staff, even before the new institution has been formally established.

The European Monetary Institute, which will turn into the ECB in 11 days' time, has already posted advertisements for committee support staff.

These include specialists in payments systems and banking supervision, information technology and even bodyguards.

All the advertisements contain the proviso that jobs "will be offered on a fixed-term contract basis", but they add that "it is envisaged that the candidate, if suitable, will be offered a position with the future ECB".

They also suggest that the key business of the bank will be conducted in English.

Heads of state and government will agree by written procedure next week that the ECB should be set up one month earlier than originally planned, on 1 June, when the six-member executive board will take up office in Frankfurt.

The way has been cleared for them to start work by the European Parliament's endorsement of the nominees, led by ECB President Wim Duisenberg and Vice-President Christian Noyer, last week.

The six will then have a week to prepare for the first meeting of the governing council: the 17-strong decision-making body of the bank comprising all the euro-11 national central bank governors plus the executive board.

This council, which will have the power to set interest rates once economic and monetary union is established in January 1999, will meet for the first time on 9 June.

The pay and conditions of Duisenberg and his colleagues will be agreed by another six-member committee made up of three central bank governors and three finance ministers, including Italy's Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.

Its decisions will be highly sensitive, especially in member states such as Germany and the Netherlands where the population frowns upon overly-generous salaries and perks for EU civil servants.

It will also set the tone for the negotiations within the ECB itself over staff contracts.

Germany, as the bank's host government, and Duisenberg himself, are pushing hard to ensure that the contracts for the bank's staff are considerably less generous than those of employees of the European Commission and Parliament. The new bank president has stated that the ECB should become a "role model for a strong but efficient European administration".

Negotiations have begun between the EMI's management and the staff committee over pay, length of contracts, security of tenure and fringe benefits such as rent allowances and the reimbursement of school fees.

The German government negotiated a special tax regime for EMI staffers when it was established in 1994, but this is not as low as the 13% Euro-tax paid by civil servants at other EU institutions, and the EMI does not intend to pay the extra 16% for people working away from home.

However, the French, Italian and Spanish governments and central banks have complained that failure to offer generous terms will mean that their best candidates will not be prepared to move to Frankfurt.

They point out that EMI staffing is already lopsided in favour of northern Europeans, with Germans alone making up 28% of the employees, compared with the country's 25% share of the population of the 11-nation euro-zone.