Ombudsman challenges recruitment procedure ‘secrecy’

Date: 27/11/1997

By Leyla Linton

THE EU Ombudsman is challenging the 'secrecy' surrounding recruitment procedures in the European Commission.

Jacob Söderman has launched an 'own-initiative' inquiry after receiving several complaints from people dissatisfied with the way their job applications were handled. He has written to Commission President Jacques Santer asking him to make recruitment for posts in the institution more open.

He says people seeking to work at the heart of the Union simply cannot understand why the Commission's recruitment procedures are so lacking in transparency.

In his letter to Santer, the Ombudsman points out that for many of those concerned, applying for jobs is their first contact with the EU institutions, and says this should be a positive experience. "It seems contrary to the Community's commitment to transparency that these first contacts for possible future civil servants should be marked by lack of transparency," he states.

The move comes after candidates complained to Söderman that they had not been told why their applications were rejected, that the evaluation criteria and the names and qualifications of the selection board were kept secret, that they had not been able to take home copies of their exam paper, and that their requests to see the corrected version of their questions had been refused.

Article 6 of the Commission's staff regulations says that the proceedings of the selection board should be secret. But in his letter, the Ombudsman warns: "It seems that the provision has been given an extent which its underlying aim may not justify and which citizens find incomprehensible in a democratic and accountable administration."

Söderman has given Santer until the end of next February to tell him what the Commission plans to do to improve the situation.

But Eila Nevalainen, spokeswoman for Personnel Commissioner Erkki Liikanen, defended the institution's procedures.

She said the general criteria for assessing applications were made public and added: "If the candidates ask about their own performance, they get the information. They know their marks. What is not revealed are the marks of other candidates."

She also confirmed that candidates were not given the corrected version of their exam papers.

Nevalainen insisted the secrecy surrounding the names of those on the selection board was necessary to guarantee its independence.

From next year, however, Liikanen plans to publish the names of candidates on reserve lists, which in the past have been kept secret.