WRITTEN QUESTION E-2182/01

by Glenys Kinnock (PSE) to the Commission

(23 July 2001)

Subject: Delegation staffing

Does the Commission have any figures which confirm that there is a significant imbalance in the allocation of staff to delegations in third countries?

Would the Commission provide detailed evidence of the situation in ACP States compared to, for instance, south-east Asia or the Balkans?

Have there been any recent reductions in the staffing of ACP Delegations? If so, how can that be justified when the implementation of the Cotonou Agreement is at such a critical stage?

Answer given by Mr Patten on behalf of the Commission

(9 November 2001)

In its communication to the Council and the Parliament on the development of the External Service of 3 July 2001(1), the Commission has tried to reconcile the need to be represented globally with the tight financial situation applying to the management of the Service. Hard decisions have had to be taken to close Offices and streamline Delegations in different regions of the world in order to be able to find the resources, both financial and human, to adapt the Service to a changing environment and to the Commission's role within it.

The differences in the allocation of staff to Delegations is a result of the fact that external representations of the Commission were not created at the same time and did not all fulfill the same functions or work in a similar environment. Originally, the main tasks of most Delegations were to participate in international trade negotiations in Geneva and in some industrialised countries or to implement assistance in the African, Caribbean and Pacific area. A relatively comfortable budgetary position and the difficulty in finding university-level local talent in the ACP countries resulted in the deployment of a larger number of officials, as compared to university-level local staff, than is the case elsewhere. This is still a characteristic of many ACP Delegations because, some of those difficulties still apply. However, efforts to correct this situation have been undertaken since 1996. Re-balancing consists of re-deploying officials' posts when this is judged possible and necessary, by either nationals of the host country or Europeans employed locally on a contract basis. In all cases, however, attention is paid to keeping enough officials in place to perform tasks involving the exercise of public authority that cannot be performed by local staff. At the beginning of 1996, before redeployments were started, the Commission had in its Delegations in ACP countries 241 A officials and 24 university-level local staff. As of today it has, respectively, 211 and 91.

Those Delegations which have been opened more recently, or older ones in developed countries where local talent is more readily available, show a very different profile. De-concentration, through which Delegations take on the aid management responsibilities previously held by headquarters, and de-centralisation, passing on those responsibilities to beneficiaries' governments, have become the main plank of the reform of the management of external assistance, and a major determining factor in the ratio between officials and locally hired staff. In the Balkans and Eastern Europe, excluding the enlargement Delegations, at the beginning of 1996 the Commission had 25 A grade officials and 27 university-level local staff. As of today it has, respectively, 40 and 111. The equivalent figures for Asia are 27 and 30 at the beginning of 1996 and 34 and 48 as of today.

Due to the scarcity of resources on the administrative part of the budget and in order to implement those policies, the financial rules have been changed in some areas. In PHARE and TACIS countries, for example, including the Balkans, non-statutory technical and other staff are being paid under the operational part of the budget. This adds flexibility and makes it easier to hire as programmes expand and to cut back as they wind up. These staff make up a significant part of the non-officials in the referred regions.

The result is that in some cases Delegations in other areas seem at a disadvantage when compared with those larger ones in the Balkans, for example. However, the Commission is at this very moment actively pursuing de-concentration towards non-European Delegations. This policy will apply mostly in Africa and Asia but also in Latin America and the Pacific. By 2004 all Delegations implementing a significant assistance programme will have been strengthened in this way.

The communication of 3 July 2001 foresees further redeployments of staff from some ACP Delegations, albeit in a limited way. The eleven posts freed are to be used in part to strengthen regional Delegations in the same area and the remaining posts will be used to open new Delegations in areas where the Commission is still underrepresented politically, taking into account both the importance of the trade component and the implementation of external assistance, including the European Development Fund (EDF). As in the past, where necessary compensation will be provided for the posts to be re-deployed through the allocation of posts for the recruitment of university-level local staff or locally hired technical assistance staff.

Concerning the implementation of the Cotonou Agreement, in those countries where the Commission has found it necessary to close or streamline its representations, additional human resources are being allocated to some of the regional Delegations concerned in order to reinforce their capacity to cover programmes and activities in the countries for which they are responsible. Furthermore, these Delegations will be provided with additional resources under the de-concentration exercise, which will strengthen their programme-implementing capacity.

(1) COM(2001) 381 final.