The Netherlands, for example, despite making up 3.9 percent of the EU’s population, only accounted for about 2 percent of candidates during the last hiring competition of this kind in 2019, according to the Commission. In response, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs is working to encourage applicants to join its “talent network” and providing training sessions and practice materials free of charge.
One diplomat from an underrepresented member country said that “geographical balance in the EU institutions is about legitimacy. Europe’s policies are stronger when shaped by talent from every corner of the Union,” adding that “citizens will only believe in Europe if they recognize themselves in its institutions.”
Poland has run social media campaigns to raise awareness of the competition at home and provided a six-hour training session earlier this month, covering how to ace the verbal, abstract and numerical reasoning tests. Ireland similarly has a strategy to boost its representation.
András Baneth, the founder of EU Training — a company that works with national governments to help their candidates — said the diplomatic scramble highlights a “contradiction” in the way the bloc works. “Formally speaking, civil servants, once they are hired, no longer represent … their home country — they need to be neutral and look at the European interest. But then … why the hell would so many national governments be so keen on helping their countrymen and women to get into these institutions?”
Traditionally, embassies have kept a close eye on which of their citizens are in the most senior tier of officials, working to parachute allies of their national governments into jobs as heads of cabinet and directorate-generals. But the growing focus on the AD-5 competition marks an increasingly fierce fight for younger people in mid-level roles, who could have decades of service ahead of them in the institutions.
“Those informal channels, the perspective, ideas, culture and politics they might bring into the policymaking — [EU countries] consider that an important endeavor,” Baneth said.