Too many boomers in Brussels? EU goes large on its age drawback

BRUSSELS — Brussels isn’t any metropolis for younger officers.

The European Quarter is full of gray-haired Brussels lifers who know the corridors of powers just like the backs of their (wrinkled) fingers.

However the European Fee revamped its hiring system to attract in recent blood. The highly effective EU govt unveiled a leaner entrance examination and a extra fashionable work tradition in a bid to draw millennials to its ranks. Nonetheless, many say extra drastic reforms are wanted to reverse the getting old of the EU’s officers.

The typical age of full-time Fee staffers — generally known as directors in Brussels parlance — spiked over the past decade because the variety of new competitions was minimize to the bone and younger aspiring civil servants have been scared off by the concours, the EU’s notoriously prolonged choice process. And the few millennials who’ve made it to the Berlaymont complain that they’re handled as second-class staffers. 

“I’ve older colleagues who earn 5 – 6 instances greater than me to do precisely the identical job and precisely the identical degree of accountability,” mentioned a disgruntled younger Fee official who, like others on this story, was granted anonymity as a way to freely focus on inside personnel issues. 

Hopes have been excessive in Brussels {that a} main entry examination slated for November would have introduced recent faces to the Fee’s ranks. However the EU’s personnel company postponed the take a look at amid complaints about technical glitches in digital testing — additional undermining the EU’s damaged repute amongst youthful cohorts. 

“It’s a technology that has been rising up for fairly a while now with a detrimental discourse on the EU,” mentioned Magali Gravier, an instructional on the Copenhagen Enterprise College who has written extensively on EU staffing. 

“We even have seen in a sure variety of surveys, the youthful generations are extra Euroskeptic than older generations,” she added.

The end result of this generational conflict extends properly past the Brussels bubble. Eurocrats are the lifeblood of the EU establishments, drafting key reforms on points resembling local weather change and digital regulation that overwhelmingly have an effect on youthful generations throughout member nations. It isn’t proper for these selections to fall down solely to getting old staffers with no pores and skin within the recreation, say aspiring Eurocrats.

“You clearly have fully totally different views in your method to the inexperienced and digital transitions if you’re 50,” the younger Fee official mentioned.

Fortress Berlaymont

The typical age of Fee staffers has crept up over time as younger graduates have been postpone by the EU’s sluggish choice course of and as they misplaced out from its staffing reforms. 

Lengthy ready instances of greater than a yr for the concours discouraged many aspiring EU officers, who opted as a substitute for a personal sector job. 

“The way in which it [the test] is organized, will not be tuned sufficient to attraction to younger individuals,” a senior Fee official informed POLITICO, speaking concerning the outdated concours. 

The technical glitches which have riddled the EU’s revamped entry examination additionally drove away many potential younger recruits.

“They informed us that this quicker mannequin could be simpler to promote,” mentioned an EU diplomat of the distant testing. “Now we have many attention-grabbing individuals who need to come [to Brussels], however then we are able to’t supply them a lot,” the diplomat mentioned in reference to the issues.

To make issues worse, the EU’s prime courtroom scrapped an higher age restrict of 35 for collaborating within the concours on the grounds that it discriminated in opposition to older candidates. However in observe, this led to younger candidates competing in opposition to older and extra skilled friends, who in the end gained a bonus within the EU’s recruitment course of. 

“As an alternative of hiring the younger, we’re hiring the outdated younger; that’s, newly employed officers with restricted profession prospects who’re demotivated from the beginning,” mentioned Cristiano Sebastiani, president of Renouveau et Démocratie, a commerce union representing EU workers. This exacerbates the age drawback throughout the EU’s largest establishment, he argued.

The Fee additionally fueled its senescence by growing the usual retirement age of its workers to 66 and reducing the variety of entry-level exams. This pushed up the typical age of its everlasting staffers from 45 to 50 within the interval from 2010 to 2022. 

On this timeframe, the proportion of individuals over 50 working for the Fee swelled whereas the variety of officers of their 20s and 30s dwindled, in accordance with the EU govt’s personal figures. 

This has made life harder for youthful staffers, who really feel ever extra remoted within the EU’s corridors of energy.

“I’d say that 70 to 80 % of my group are males of their 50s,” mentioned the primary younger Fee official. 

A second Eurocrat in her 20s mentioned that there aren’t any casual teams of staffers beneath 30 in her division as a result of “all people may be very outdated, so I assume I must hang around by myself.” 

“The group itself may be very good, however I don’t suppose they understand how younger I’m.”

Excessive-ranking EU officers who rose to the highest at a younger age really feel equally uneasy.

The EU’s former overseas coverage chief Federica Mogherini — who arrived to Brussels at 41 — mentioned she “felt an excessive amount of on the highest to be so younger.”

“And truly, sure, if I seemed round me, I used to be very younger, in comparison with what was anticipated from [me],” she mentioned at a panel dialogue in Brussels this previous October.

The employment framework itself is a part of the issue. Step one into EU employment consists of a time-bound contract — generally known as an intérimaire in EU jargon — that the employer can simply deliver to an finish.

This path is “soul-crushing,” famous the primary official. “That is extremely problematic as a result of … you might be employed in a precarious place the place your contract is prolonged month-to-month, and even weekly.”

However even those who do stick round are typically awarded unstable jobs — becoming a member of the ranks of the ever-expanding contract agent workers, a transitory position that counts 8,000 officers and is taken into account step one to turning into an Eurocrat attributable to its rolling utility interval and extra simple choice course of. 

However even that expires after six years — which means officers would then both have to depart the Fee or begin from scratch in one other company in the event that they don’t cross the concours by that point. And it typically means the exit door for a lot of younger individuals who’ve misplaced hope of profitable a extra everlasting submit.

“I do know individuals who needed to depart the Fee after six years,” mentioned the primary official. 

Anti-age components

However the Fee revamped its hiring course of to draw extra millennials to its ranks.

The EU govt pledged in 2022 to chop ready instances for its entry examination and permit extra teleworking in a bid to make a Brussels profession extra engaging for younger graduates from throughout the EU.  

“[The concours] shall be quicker. It is going to be accomplished in three months, ideally, not a yr — which is much more acceptable in the event you depart college,” mentioned the senior Fee official, talking in a brand-new workplace tower with shiny glass home windows and hi-tech services. 

Every division will immediately decide its workers, giving it larger leeway to appropriate geographic imbalances and replenish any empty spots. The brand new guidelines additionally enable every supervisor to set totally different guidelines on working from house, creating competitors round attractiveness between models and permitting every applicant to select their most well-liked supply. 

Younger Eurocrats praised the idea of shifting to digital testing however questioned whether or not the Fee can totally ship on its reformist agenda. 

The primary official mentioned that the final goal quantities to a “step in the precise course.” Nonetheless, she added, the important thing query is whether or not the Fee can handle to chop ready instances for the concours, given the way it’s already combating delays on present competitions. 

In the meantime, critics argue that deeper cultural shifts are wanted to alter the work surroundings in Brussels. 

Sebastiani, the EU commerce unionist, fears that intransigent managers will thwart the Fee’s makes an attempt to modernize its work tradition. 

“Some center managers have a paramilitary tradition, they consider in a tradition of management,” he informed POLITICO. He famous for instance that some EU bosses launched extra flexibility through the COVID-19 pandemic — however reverted instantly as soon as the pandemic was over. 

“The true problem is to both go ahead … or return to the outdated bureaucratic routine,” he mentioned.