‘Benvenido’ to DGX

Date: 18/07/1996

Dark mutterings in DGX (information), where someone has spotted that an awful lot of stagiaires seem to be fluent in Spanish. This is because an abnormally high number of them are Spanish - including, recently, the king of Spain's nephew.

Nothing wrong with the Spanish, of course, but when up to half of DGX's quota of stagiaires comes from one country, the ability to choose suitably qualified helpers (most of DGX's work is in English) is severely restricted.

Cynics do not need to look far to find the reason for the situation. They suggest that political pressure from Openness and Transparency Commissioner Marcelino Oreja's Cabinet is to blame.

“What makes things even worse is that a number of Spanish stagiaires, whose salaries are paid out of the DGX budget, go off to more interesting directorates-general as soon as they arrive here,” grumbled one non-Spanish source.