Patten concedes ‘A grades’ need more foreign work experience

Date: 31/10/01

By David Cronin

MOST senior European Commission officials handling foreign policy issues lack experience in serving the Union abroad, external relations chief Chris Patten has admitted.

In 1997 the Commission adopted rules requiring that all 'A-grade' officials dealing with foreign policy must serve outside the Union.

Four years later, however, only 56 of the 209 fonctionnaires holding a 'head of unit' or higher position in the Commission's six departments dealing with foreign policy have worked as civil servants beyond the EU's borders for more than one year.

Replying to a query by UK Liberal MEP Chris Davies, Patten said the requirement to serve outside the EU allowed the Commission to fill the staffing needs of its delegations in the wider world "especially those where living conditions are less attractive".

Additionally "it is a way of ensuring that the experience gained by officials better matches the requirement of the posts [they hold] and vice versa and that there is a greater osmosis of the experience gained in the external service and headquarters" in Brussels.

But he acknowledged that only 16 of the 58 top-level officials in the directorate-general for external relations (DG Relex) have more than 12 months' experience in a non-

EU state. The situation is similar in DG Enlargement, where four of the 20 most senior officials have done the stipulated amount of external work.

The corresponding figures for the other four departments was: six out of 28 officials in DG Trade; 12 out of 31 in the DG for overseas development; 15 out of 62 in the new EuropeAid services; and three out of 10 in the EU's humanitarian office ECHO.

Most senior European Commission officials handling foreign policy issues lack experience in serving the Union abroad, external relation chief Chris Patten has admitted.