EU insiders need not apply

Date: 15/02/1996

The European Commission stands accused of discrimination against its own staff.

It recently placed a job advertisement looking for someone to run the Commission's own office in Luxembourg. The A3 post required a thorough knowledge of this and years of experience of that, said the advert, and then stipulated: “EU officials may not apply.”

The reason? It seems EU insiders have had their chance at the job, but failed to make the grade.

“Santer and Liikanen decided none of the Commission's 15,000 officials was capable of managing the Luxembourg office and they had to look outside,” explained one official.

The procedure is not unprecedented. External candidates have recently headed Commission offices in London and Bonn.

But it is an unusual move and staff unions are said to be baffled. Perhaps the need for a decent command of Luxembourgish tripped up many otherwise suitable applicants.

Meanwhile, problems of a different sort are emerging in the race to become head of the first Commission delegation office in the Baltics.

The competition is fierce between Finns and Swedes for the job of running the office in Tallinn, the Estonian capital which both countries consider to be in their backyard.

A decision is expected some time in March.