WRITTEN QUESTION No. 1779/98 by Nikitas KAKLAMANIS to the Commission. Staffing of the European Environmental Agency (EEA)
Date: 1998-06-11
Institutions: European Parliament, KAKLAMANIS
Subjects: European Environment Agency, Greece, Ireland, competition (EU), recruitment, regulations for civil servants

22.2.1999

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 50/91

Nonetheless the Commission remains vigilant to defend the Community interests and continues to make efforts to
improve the security of its data networks. Furthermore, the Commission condemns all attempts to breach the
integrity and confidentiality of information held or transmitted by the institutions.

(1999/C 50/132)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-1779/98

by Nikitas Kaklamanis (UPE) to the Commission

(11 June 1998)

Subject: Staffing of the European Environmental Agency (EEA)

On 13 May 1998 Mrs Bjerregaard kindly answered my Written Question No 1007/98) (1) on recruitment for the
EEA. The answer to my Question 4 consists of a table which shows that out of a total of 56 EEA officials, there is
only one (1) Greek official, compared to seven (7) Belgian, four (4) Portuguese, three (3) Finnish, seven (7) Dutch
and only one (1) Irish officials.

This is very strange as the population of Greece is at least as large as that of Belgium and Portugal, and
substantially larger than that of Finland, but lower than the population of the Netherlands, although not so much
as to justify the fact that there are seven times more Dutch than Greek officials. Ireland is in a similar position,
since the number of Irish officials does not seem to correspond to the population of the country compared to that
of other EU Member States.

Will the Commission say how and when this obvious imbalance in the distribution of officials by nationality will
be corrected so that officials of Greek nationality are adequately represented on the staff of the EEA?

(1) OJ C 402, 22.12.1998, p. 56.

Answer given by Mrs Bjerregaard on behalf of the Commission

(13 July 1998)

The staff regulations applicable to officials and other agents of the European Communities apply to the European
environment agency. Article 27 lays down the basic principles of recruitment and states that:

(cid:145)Recruitment shall be directed to securing for the institution the services of officials of the highest standard of
ability, efficiency and integrity, recruited on the broadest possible geographical basis among nationals of Member
States of the Communities(cid:146).

The Honourable Member will appreciate that there is no formal division of posts according to geographical or
demographic criteria. On the contrary, recruitment is principally on merit and is based on open and transparent
competitions that are designed with this objective in mind.

In a small organisation like the European environment agency, which is based in the North of Europe, there will
inevitably be practical difficulties in reconciling the need for the best candidates and the need for a good
geographical spread. This means that apparent imbalances will be more striking, as is the case with the Agency.

The Commission believes that the Agency has respected the broad principles of staff recruitment and that it has
made efforts to achieve a better balance through the recruitment of national experts.

The Commission representative on the management board of the Agency will draw the attention of the executive
director and the board as a whole to the Honourable Member(cid:146)s concerns.