WRITTEN QUESTION E-3138/96 by Rinaldo Bontempi (PSE) to the Commission (22 November 1996)

Subject: Management of the list of suitable candidates drawn up following competition COM/A/770 and COM/A/764 for A7 and A8 administrators and assistant administrators

Following open competitions COM/A/770 and COM/A/764 for A7 and A8 administrators and assistant administrators (OJ C 199 of 23 July 1993), a list of 300 suitable candidates was drawn up for each category, instead of the 150 originally stated in the notice of competition, on the grounds of the very large number of applicants (56000) and the high marks achieved by many candidates.

In the two years after the end of the competition, only a small proportion of the 600 suitable candidates were appointed, while the Commission's actions over that period were somewhat inconsistent.

In June 1995 DG IX summoned all the successful candidates for interviews with the relevant DGs and a full medical examination - which is normally carried out immediately prior to appointment- despite the fact that, by that date, the other DGs and the Commission services at all levels had indicated unofficially that in the majority of cases they were unable to appoint staff as a result of budgetary constraints and the obligation to give priority to citizens of the new Member States.

In June 1996, as this situation still obtained, the Commission extended the validity of the list until the end of 1997. At about the same time, it was proposed that a new open competition should be held, which would have the effect of reducing or completely destroying the chances of appointment of candidates who had been passed the previous competition.

Quite apart from the obvious potential damage to the image and credibility of the European institutions caused by this state of affairs, there has also been a considerable waste of resources, since all the successful candidates underwent a full medical examination (with travel and accommodation expenses being met, naturally, by the Commission) which was valid for only six months, although it was known that there was only a very small possibility of their being appointed within that period.

If a new competition were to be announced now (as has been reported), when the previous list of suitable candidates is far from exhausted, it would mean duplicating expenditure on staff recruitment at the very time that candidates who passed the last competition were being told that there were not sufficient resources available for them to be appointed.

What does the Commission intend to do to remedy this situation?

What are its short- and medium-term recruitment plans?

Is it true that the Commission intends to announce a new open competition?

Answer given by Mr Liikanen on behalf of the Commission (7 January 1997)

Competitions COM/A/764 and COM/A/770 were published in July 1993 and completed in November and December 1994 respectively. Over 150 of the 300 shortlisted candidates of competition COM/A/770 and 220 of the 300 shortlisted candidates for competition COM/A/764 have already been recruited. The lists have now been prolonged until the end of 1997 and further recruitments are envisaged from the lists.

The Commission has recruited as category A officials around 250 citizens from the three new Member States since January 1995. A certain number of these recruitments have been on posts previously occupied by citizens from the twelve. In the absence of enlargement, recruitment from competitions COM/A/770 and COM/A/764 might therefore have been higher. But in any event, the recruitment performance from these competitions can be judged as satisfactory. The Commission would recall the requirement in the Staff Regulations that a reserve list 'shall wherever possible contain at least twice as many names as the number of posts to be filled'.

The motivation for convoking all the candidates on the reserve lists was to ensure that all had an equal and fair chance of being recruited. It made sense to have these candidates take their medical exam while they were being interviewed as this saved the cost of a further trip to Brussels specifically for this purpose for those who were offered jobs within the next six months.

As far as future competitions for category A officials are concerned, no decisions have yet been taken. It is hoped that these could be done on an inter-institutional basis. It should be noted that any new competitions launched in 1997 will probably take around one year to complete so that the reserve list would not be available until 1998.