The Netherlands, for example, despite making up 3.9 percent of the EU\u2019s 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 \u201ctalent network\u201d and providing training sessions and practice materials free of charge.<\/p>\n
One diplomat from an underrepresented member country said that \u201cgeographical balance in the EU institutions is about legitimacy. Europe\u2019s policies are stronger when shaped by talent from every corner of the Union,\u201d adding that \u201ccitizens will only believe in Europe if they recognize themselves in its institutions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Poland\u00a0has run social media campaigns to raise awareness of the competition at home and\u00a0provided a six-hour training session earlier this month, covering how to ace the verbal, abstract and numerical reasoning tests.\u00a0Ireland similarly has a strategy to boost its representation.<\/p>\n
Andr\u00e1s\u00a0Baneth, the founder of EU Training \u2014 a company that works with national governments to help their candidates \u2014 said the diplomatic scramble highlights a \u201ccontradiction\u201d in the way the bloc works. \u201cFormally speaking, civil servants, once they are hired, no longer represent \u2026 their home country \u2014 they need to be neutral and look at the European interest. But then \u2026\u00a0why the hell\u00a0would\u00a0so many national governments be so keen on helping their\u00a0countrymen\u00a0and women to get into these institutions?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose informal channels, the perspective, ideas, culture and politics they might bring into the\u00a0policymaking \u2014\u00a0[EU countries] consider that an important endeavor,\u201d\u00a0Baneth said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Netherlands, for example, despite making up 3.9 percent of the EU\u2019s population, only accounted for about 2…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37083,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[211,210,2042,26,158,190,3041,159,2433,182,1446,132,1197],"class_list":{"0":"post-37082","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brussels","8":"tag-belgium","9":"tag-brussels","10":"tag-competition","11":"tag-denmark","12":"tag-finland","13":"tag-germany","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-italy","16":"tag-media","17":"tag-poland","18":"tag-social-media","19":"tag-sweden","20":"tag-the-netherlands"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116206153502654557","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}