Working for the European Union does not mean one single thing. Seven institutions, around ten bodies, dozens of agencies spread across most Member States, and at least five different legal statuses: the phrase covers situations that share neither the same method of recruitment, nor the same duration, nor the same rights.
This page describes that landscape from the texts. On one point it deliberately abstains: it quotes no pay figure, and it explains why.
The Union has seven institutions: the European Parliament, the European Council, the Council of the European Union, the European Commission, the Court of Justice of the European Union, the European Central Bank and the European Court of Auditors. To these are added around ten bodies and a large number of decentralised agencies.
Geography counts for more than people think. The protocol on the location of the seats distributes the institutions between Brussels, Luxembourg, Strasbourg and Frankfurt, and the agencies are established in most Member States. Applying to an agency means applying for one specific city.
On the exact number of agencies, the official sources do not agree: the general page of the Union speaks of more than thirty decentralised agencies, while the network of agencies counts more by including the joint undertakings. We report the discrepancy rather than settle it.
The word official applies only to part of the staff. The Staff Regulations of Officials of the Union distinguish three function groups for officials: administrators, assistants, and secretaries and clerks. The other categories fall under a different text, the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants, or under decisions specific to each institution.
The difference is not cosmetic: it bears on the method of recruitment, the duration of the engagement, statutory protection and career prospects.
The basic salary scale appears in Article 66 of the Staff Regulations. But the amounts written into the Staff Regulations are legally reference values: the scale actually applicable is the one set by the annual update, published at the end of each year in the Official Journal of the European Union with effect from 1 July preceding.
Copying a figure onto a web page therefore means publishing a value that becomes false the following year at the latest, without the reader being able to know it. We prefer to send you to the source, which is public, free of charge and up to date.
The update mechanism is laid down by Article 65 of the Staff Regulations and by its Annex XI. It combines an indicator of the change in the purchasing power of national civil servants in a panel of Member States, established by Eurostat, with a cost of living index for Brussels and Luxembourg. A moderation clause caps the effect of the specific indicator, and an exception clause may apply where the gross domestic product of the Union falls.
Title II of the Staff Regulations imposes duties that most private law contracts know nothing of. Article 11 lays down the obligation to act solely with the interests of the Union in mind and prohibits seeking or accepting instructions from outside. Article 11a requires abstention from dealing with any matter in which one has a personal interest.
These obligations survive departure. Article 16 requires the declaration of any occupational activity carried on in the two years following the end of service, and prohibits certain interest representation activities for twelve months for former senior management. Article 17 maintains professional secrecy with no time limit.
In return, the Staff Regulations protect. Article 24 obliges the Union to assist a servant threatened or attacked by reason of their position. Article 22a protects anyone reporting an illegal activity in good faith. Article 26 prohibits any mention, in the personal file, of political, trade union or religious beliefs, racial origin or sexual orientation.
The competition is not the only door, but the other routes have limits that need to be known before committing to them. The busiest is the permanent selection procedure for contract staff: the candidate places a profile in a database, sits tests if that profile is preselected, and waits. EPSO says it plainly: registration does not guarantee a job.
Traineeships are a real way in to knowledge of the environment, not to a status. They last a few months, are paid under rules specific to each institution, and several institutions exclude candidates who have already done a traineeship or worked in an institution of the Union.
Secondment as a national expert presupposes already being a public servant in a Member State. The expert continues to be paid by their administration of origin, receives allowances from the host institution, and the secondment is capped in time. It gives rise to no right to recruitment.
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