WRITTEN QUESTION E-0670/02

by Linda McAvan (PSE) to the Commission

(11 March 2002)

Subject: Recruitment of ethnic minorities in the European Institutions

It is my understanding that there is no positive discrimination either for women or ethnic minorities with regard to recruitment practices. Instead, positive action is used to encourage these groups to apply.

Can the Commission confirm what positive actions are taking place and what effect these actions have had on recruitment?

Answer given by Mr Kinnock on behalf of the Commission

(23 April 2002)

The Commission is explicitly committed to a policy of equal treatment and opportunities for women and men, and to practical means of implementing that policy.

Actions taken on the organisation of competitions have focused on publicity and on conditions of testing the candidates' qualifications and abilities.

Publicity activities include the publication of a general Equal Opportunities statement in the Official Journal and the words: The Commission particularly welcomes applications from women form part of that statement. Press advertisements for competitions in

areas where women are traditionally under-represented contain a similar statement. For certain types of posts such as secretarial jobs where men are generally under-represented a statement welcoming applications from male candidates is included. Both the new recruitment brochure which is about to be published and the recruitment web-site which is about to be launched will carry an Equal Opportunities statement.

The tests used during the selection procedure are monitored in order to prevent possible gender bias. While it is necessary to ensure that essential competencies are assessed, certain psychometric tests used in the pre-selection phase have been abandoned since women appeared to perform less well in such tests, whatever organisation employs them. Similarly, while numerical reasoning is a relevant competence, the balance between verbal and numerical questions in the reasoning test has been adjusted in recent pre-selection tests. There are also ongoing efforts to increase female representation on selection boards.

These and related actions have produced appreciable results: during the period 1998-2000 the Commission organised 99 competitions and attracted 67 301 applicants, of whom 53,6 % were female. Applications from women for European public administration posts in recent large-scale category A competitions slightly exceeded those from men at A8 level. In recent large-scale competitions, 34,8 % of successful candidates were women, as compared to 27,3 % in the large-scale competitions completed in 1994. A similar trend is also observed in the general competitions organised at A4/A5 level where the number of female applicants grew from 26 % in 1997-1998 to 35 % in 2001.

Efforts to encourage further advances will continue.

The Commission has, furthermore, taken actions that are relevant to recruitment:

As one of the means of promoting and achieving equal opportunities among its staff, the Commission has, since 1995, fixed annual targets for the number of women officials to be recruited to category A, specifically A8, A7 and A6 grades.

Statistics over the period since 1995 show a noticeable improvement in the representation of women in category A within the Commission. On 1 January 2002, women represented 43 % of grade A8, 30,6 % of grade A7 and 28 % of grade A6. These figures are considerably better than the average representation of women in category A overall, which was 21,8 % on the same date. This improvement in the representation of women in these recruitment grades is a result of the Commission's positive action policy of maximising the recruitment of women from the external reserve lists. Women represented 27,3 % of the lists in 2001, but 37,2 % of the qualified personnel who were recruited to these grades were women.

The Commission is also committed to promoting applications and recruitment from ethnic minorities. To this end, the Commission will draw Member States' further attention to the issue of racial and ethnic diversity in public administrations with a view to encouraging applications. In addition, in co-operation with Member States, publicity for future competitions will be improved in order to ensure that it reaches the maximum number of communities in the Member States. This would involve, for example, advertisements in regional and local papers, increased contact with minority ethnic groups and with recruitment sources in the Members States (Institutes, Universities, Professional schools, main libraries, etc) as well as on the Europa web site. The Honourable Member will appreciate that further increases in the proportion of women and men from ethnic minorities in the civil and diplomatic services and public administrations of Member States would be likely to have a desirable and positive effect on the recruitment of personnel from those ethnic backgrounds in the EU civil service.

An Action Plan on Equal Opportunities and Flexible Working Arrangements drafted on the basis of the October 2001 Global Package for the Reform of Personnel Policy should be adopted soon and will include these elements.

As the Honourable Member will understand, it is too early to indicate what effect these actions will have on the recruitment of ethnic minorities to the Commission's workforce.