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Annex 2 to the General Rules, entitled ‘General Guidelines of the College of the Heads of Administration on the use of languages in EPSO competitions’ (‘the General Guidelines’) states the following: ‘It is confirmed that as a general rule the use of languages in EPSO competitions will be as follows: — Stable elements on the EPSO website will be in all official languages. — Competition notices, including competitions for linguists and competitions in connection with enlargement, as well as the general rules governing open competitions will be published in all official languages. — The following tests will be in all official languages: — Admission tests (verbal and numerical reasoning). — Language comprehension tests for translator competitions. — Preliminary translation tests for lawyer-linguist competitions. — Intermediate interpreting tests (on computer) for interpreter competitions. — Competence tests (translation or interpreting) for linguist competitions. … — Assessment centres will be held in the candidates’ second language only, chosen from English, French and German. Similarly, calls for expressions of interest in selection procedures for contract staff organised by the Office will be published in all official languages. Several factors justify limiting the choice of second language. Firstly, the interests of the service require that new recruits should be immediately operational and capable of effectively performing the duties for which they were recruited in the field or role covered by the competition. English, French and German are the languages most widely used in the institutions. Traditionally they are the languages used in meetings of members of the institutions. They are also the languages used most often for communication both in-house and with the outside world. This is borne out by statistics on the source languages of the texts translated by the institutions’ translation services. Given the institutions’ actual language requirements for the purposes of internal and external communication, one selection criterion under the first paragraph of Article 27(1) of the Staff Regulations must be a satisfactory knowledge of one of these three languages, which must be tested by simulating a realistic working situation. Knowledge of a third language as provided for in Article 45(2) of the Staff Regulations cannot be a substitute for knowledge of one of the three languages at the time of recruitment. Secondly, limiting the languages for the subsequent stages of competitions is justified by the nature of the tests involved. In line with Article 27 of the Staff Regulations, the appointing authorities of the institutions decided to modify the selection procedures by introducing from 2010 onwards methods of assessment based on competences so as be able to predict better whether candidates are capable of performing their duties. A substantial body of scientific research has shown that assessment centres, simulating real-life working situations, are the best predictor of real-life performance. As the most effective method of assessment, they are used worldwide. Given the length of careers and the degree of mobility within the institutions, this kind of assessment is crucial. With the help of a competency framework defined by the appointing authorities, a number of suitable exercises are chosen to assess the competences being sought. To ensure that candidates can be assessed fairly and can communicate directly with assessors and the other candidates taking part in an exercise, applying this method requires, in particular, that the assessment centre be conducted in a lingua franca or, in certain circumstances, in the one main language of the competition. In the former instance, the lingua franca has to be chosen from the languages that candidates are most likely to know. Given this premise, everything must be done to avoid discrimination between candidates; hence everyone has to be tested in their second language. But as that language must also be a lingua franca, the choice of second language must be limited. Since the traditional usage referred to above is still the current practice in-house, that choice has to be between English, French and German. The assessment centres do not involve assessing candidates’ knowledge of the language; a satisfactory knowledge of one of the three as a second language is quite sufficient to be able to take the tests (this is in line with the minimum requirements laid down by Article 28 of the Staff Regulations). This level of language knowledge is not in any way disproportionate given the real needs of the service as described above. Use of English, French or German as the chosen second language in the later stages of competitions does not entail any discrimination on the basis of mother tongue. It is not a restriction on the use of the mother tongue. The obligation on candidates to choose a second language (English, French or German) that is different from their first (normally mother tongue or equivalent) ensures that they can be compared on an equal footing. It should also be noted that possessing a sufficient knowledge of the second language depends essentially on a personal effort by candidates. This requirement is, in any case, proportionate in view of the real needs of the service. Limiting the second language options reflects what languages people in Europe currently know. Not only are English, French and German the languages of several Member States of the European Union, they are also the foreign languages most widely known. They are the languages most often learned as foreign languages and the languages that people think are the most useful to learn. The actual requirements of the service thus seem to be a reasonable reflection of the language skills that candidates can be expected to have, especially since language knowledge in the strict sense (errors of grammar, spelling, or vocabulary) is not assessed in the competence tests. Limiting the choice of second language to English, French or German does not, therefore, pose a disproportionate barrier for people wishing to take competitions. Indeed, to go by the information available, it closely matches what people are used to and expect. The relevant statistics bear out the conclusion that limiting the second language options for certain stages of competitions is proportionate and non-discriminatory. For instance, English, French or German were the most frequent choices when candidates were given the option of choosing their second language from among the 11 official languages in the major generalist EU-25 competitions for administrators and assistants in 2005. The statistics for competitions after the 2010 reform show no bias in favour of nationals of the countries where English, French or German are official languages. And the statistics for the AD 2010 round of competitions show that substantial numbers of candidates still chose one of the three as their second language. For the same reasons, it seems reasonable to require candidates to choose one of these three for communicating with EPSO and filling in the talent screener. Consequently, in seeking a balance between the interests of the service and candidates’ abilities, certain tests should be held in a limited number of European Union languages, both to ensure that successful candidates possess adequate knowledge of a combination of languages that will enable them to carry out their duties effectively and so that selection methods based on an assessment of performance can be applied. Since the competition notices and guides for candidates are published in the 24 languages of the Union and since candidates can take the important first phase of competitions in whichever of those 24 languages they choose as their mother tongue, a fair balance would seem to have been found between the interests of the service and the principle of multilingualism and non-discrimination by language. A case-by-case choice should therefore be made in line with the language arrangements adopted by the EPSO Management Board and the institutions’ specific need to be able to recruit candidates who will be operational immediately. Thus there are two possible general cases: — First, general profiles or specific profiles where the main factor in selection, besides the general competences, is expertise or experience in a particular field or job. Here, the essential requirement is to be able to work and communicate in a multilingual context where the need to have a command of the languages most widely used in the institutions justifies limiting the choice of European Union languages in the selection procedure. — Second, profiles where knowledge of one or more languages is of particular importance, for example linguists or other profiles where the selection procedures are organised by language. Here, besides assessment of the general competences as indicated above in the first scenario, other tests of specific competences have to be organised in the language(s) in question. Even taking this approach, any decision limiting the number of languages in competitions should allow for consideration of the issue in the case of each individual competition so as to reflect the specific needs of the institutions as regards the profile(s) in question.’