Working in the European institutions

This page describes that landscape on the basis of the legal texts. On one point it deliberately holds back: it quotes no pay figures, and it explains why.

Who recruits, and where

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. In addition, there are around ten bodies and a large number of decentralised agencies.

Location matters more than people think. The Protocol on the location of the seats divides the institutions between Brussels, Luxembourg, Strasbourg and Frankfurt, and the agencies are established in most Member States. Applying to an agency means applying for a job in one specific city.

On the exact number of agencies, the official sources do not agree: the EU’s general website refers to more than thirty decentralised agencies, while the EU Agencies Network counts more because it includes the joint undertakings. We report the discrepancy rather than settle it.

• European Parliament: seat in Strasbourg, committee work in Brussels, General Secretariat in Luxembourg.
• Council of the EU: Brussels, with meetings in Luxembourg in April, June and October.
• European Commission: Brussels, with departments in Luxembourg.
• Court of Justice and Court of Auditors: Luxembourg. Central Bank: Frankfurt.
• The official directory of the institutions and bodies of the Union lets you find each entity and its city.

Five statuses, five realities

The term “official” applies to only 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 affects the method of recruitment, the length of employment, statutory protection and career prospects.

• Officials: recruited by competition, permanent post, governed by the Staff Regulations.
• Temporary staff: recruited for a fixed term, often by the agencies themselves, governed by the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants.
• Contract staff: four function groups, recruited through the permanent procedure or by vacancy notice, fixed-term contracts, with the possibility of contracts of indefinite duration in some entities.
• Seconded national experts: they remain employed and paid by their home administration, become neither officials nor servants of the Union, and their secondment is limited in time.
• Trainees: programmes specific to each institution, lasting a few months, with no link to the Staff Regulations.

Pay: why this page gives no figure

The basic salary scale appears in Article 66 of the Staff Regulations. But the amounts written into the Staff Regulations are, in legal terms, 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 retroactive effect from the preceding 1 July.

Copying a figure onto a web page therefore means publishing a value that becomes wrong the following year at the latest, without the reader having any way of knowing. We prefer to send you to the source, which is public, free of charge and up to date.

The annual update is governed 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.

• Basic salary: Article 66 of the Staff Regulations, according to grade and step.
• Correction coefficient: Article 64, applied according to the place of employment. Two postings at the same grade therefore do not result in the same net pay.
• Family allowances: household allowance, dependent child allowance and education allowance, Articles 1, 2 and 3 of Annex VII.
• Expatriation allowance: Article 69 of the Staff Regulations and Article 4 of Annex VII, with conditions of nationality and prior residence, and a reduced allowance for those who do not meet those conditions while residing outside their country of origin.
• The current rates are set out in the latest update published in the Official Journal, linked at the foot of this page.

Obligations that go further than ordinary employment law

Title II of the Staff Regulations imposes duties that most private-law contracts do not contain. 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 staff to refrain from dealing with any matter in which they have a personal interest.

These obligations continue after staff leave. Article 16 requires the declaration of any occupational activity carried on in the two years following the end of service, and bars former senior managers from certain interest representation activities for twelve months. Article 17 maintains professional secrecy with no time limit.

In return, the Staff Regulations provide protection. Article 24 obliges the Union to assist a staff member 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.

• Any outside activity, paid or unpaid, is subject to prior authorisation: Article 12b.
• Any publication dealing with the work of the Union must be notified in advance: Article 17a.
• An order considered irregular must be reported in writing; it must then be carried out once confirmed, unless it is manifestly unlawful: Article 21a.
• The disciplinary regime is laid down in Article 86 and detailed in Annex IX, which grades penalties from a warning to removal from post and requires an assessment of proportionality.
• Any decision adversely affecting a person must state the reasons on which it is based: Article 25.

Other ways in besides an open competition

The competition is not the only door, but the other routes have limits you need to know about before committing to them. The most widely used is the permanent selection procedure for contract staff: candidates enter their profile in a database, sit tests if their profile is shortlisted, and wait. EPSO puts it plainly: registration does not guarantee a job.

Traineeships are a genuine way to get to know the institutions, not a way into official 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 is open only to people who are already public servants in a Member State. The expert continues to be paid by their home administration, receives allowances from the host institution, and the secondment is limited in time. It confers no right to recruitment.

• Permanent contract staff procedure: open on a rolling basis, four function groups, tests organised by EPSO, no guarantee of a job.
• Traineeships: lasting a few months, fixed sessions, qualification and language conditions, selection specific to each institution.
• Seconded national experts: minimum seniority and experience required, total duration capped, salary still paid by the home employer.
• Temporary staff: posts published directly by the agencies and the institutions, fixed term.
• Interim work: interim staff are not EU staff members and apply through temporary work agencies, not through EPSO.