Recruitment and Expertise in the European Commission

Abstract

The article examines the changes in the European Commission's recruitment practices from its creation in the 1950s until today. Based on the insight that recruitment shapes the role of professional experts in public bureaucracies, the article traces the emphasis on specialist skills and qualifications in the Commission's recruitment competitions (the concours) over time. It finds that the selection of policy staff to the Commission has become more generalist since the 1960s, a surprising finding given that the organisation is often regarded as a 'technocracy' dominated by experts. The article attributes this development to the multinational character of the administration, as the need to integrate citizens from new member states has prompted the Commission to rely on one-size-fits-all recruitment tests. It also discusses whether the declining emphasis on specialist knowledge in staff selection can be seen as part of a broader trend towards a more generalist Commission, where officials are required to change jobs frequently and where expert functions are outsourced to other bodies.On 1 July 2013 Croatia became the 28th member of the European Union. Faced with the need to integrate Croatians into the European civil service, the European Personnel Selection Office (EPSO) organised a general competition to recruit 124 entry-level administrators with Croatian citizenship. The competition covered all fields, and anyone with at least a three-year university degree was eligible to participate. The applicants were first put through a computerised admissions test consisting of multiple-choice questions meant to assess verbal, numerical and abstract reasoning, as well as situational judgement. The top 300 candidates were invited back for a second round of tests, made up of a case study, a group exercise, an oral presentation and a structured interview.Here the candidates were assessed on eight 'general competencies': analysis and problem-solving, communicating, delivering quality and results, learning and development, prioritising and organising, resilience, working with others, and leadership. Those with the highest scores in the tests were placed on the 'reserve list', making them eligible to be hired by any of the European institutions.

International public administrations: a critique

“…Yet, exactly what kinds of competences do international bureaucracies require? While most research focuses on specialized technical knowledge (e.g., expertise in macro-economics or toxicology), it has also been shown that international administrations such as the European Commission strongly emphasize generalist competences applicable to any policy area (e.g., abstract reasoning and problem-solving skills) (Christensen 2015). Speaking to the fundamental distinction between specialist and generalist civil servants (Weber 1978: 423-26), this raises interesting questions.…”

Representative bureaucracy and specialist knowledge in the European Commission

“…Most permanent Commission officials are recruited through centralized, open competitions for life‐long careers within the administration, in accordance with the EU staff regulations. Recruitment competitions are organized periodically in a variety of fields and for different administrative grades and involve assessment on the basis of educational qualifications and/or oral, written or practical tests (see Christensen ). Traditionally, each of the major EU institutions was in charge of its own recruitment (Ban ).…”

“…This article addresses this issue by looking at the relationship between geographical representation and specialist knowledge criteria in centralized recruitment competitions to the European Commission. In the European Commission, most permanent officials are recruited through large‐scale, publicly advertised competitions organized periodically in a variety of fields, in which candidates are assessed based on educational qualifications and/or tests of different types of knowledge and skills (see Christensen ). The article examines the relationship between geographical representativeness and specialized expertise by systematically comparing the emphasis on specialist qualifications and knowledge in two types of recruitment competitions: (1) competitions where nationality was an explicit criterion – that is, the ‘special enlargement competitions’ organized to recruit citizens from new member states – and (2) competitions that did not take nationality into account.…”

“…The article also discusses possible implications of these findings for other international bureaucracies and for the literature on representative bureaucracy. Moreover, it speculates on whether there may be a link between the multinational character of the European Commission and the increasingly generalist character of its administration (see Suvarierol et al ; Wille ; Christensen ).…”

The Expert-Executive Nexus in the EU: An Introduction

“…Consequently, in order to know the role of expertise in an executive order we have to examine the extent to which bureaucrats are recruited and promoted on the basis of merit and what kind and level of technical expertise they are required to possess (Fukuyama, 2013, p. 352). As a result, changing recruitment policies and practices, such as recruiting on the basis of specialist rather than generalist qualifications in the Commission (Ban, 2010;Christensen, 2014), might both reflect and contribute to changing dynamics in EU policy-making and "technocracy". Another example is how the Commission balances meritocratic recruitment and the need for specialization and particular professional competences with other concerns, including the bureaucracy's claim to be demographically "representative" (Trondal, Murdoch, & Geys, 2015 (this issue)).…”