European Commission to recruit 83 Maltese

Neil Kinnock, European Commission Vice-President and Commissioner responsible for Administrative Reform, will visit Malta later this week to meet senior political leaders - with recruitment of Maltese officials and linguists to the EU instititutions high on the agenda.

"I will see the President, the Prime Minister, the Foreign and Education ministers, a group of parliamentarians as well as the head of the civil service, Joseph Grima," Mr Kinnock told The Sunday Times in an exclusive interview.

A former leader of the British Labour Party from 1983 to 1992, Welsh-born Mr Kinnock was previously European Commissioner for Transport (1995-1999). In addition to administrative reform, his present brief includes personnel and administration, interpretation, translation, and the internal audit service.

"This visit is one of a series I am making to the 10 accession countries," he explained. "I will be discussing Malta's preparations for accession, the reforms we have been carrying out at the Commission - partly designed to ensure that we are ready for enlargement ourselves - as well as the process for recruiting new EU civil servants from Malta.

"Twelve Maltese already work in the Commission on non-permanent contracts," he continued, "as part of an intake from accession states to assist preparations for EU enlargement. In terms of the respective population size of acceding countries, Malta has proportionally the highest number of staff.

"As a multinational, multicultural organisation we have an obligation to achieve a geographical balance across the Commission," Mr Kinnock pointed out. "For a transitional period until 2010 we have thus set indicative targets - not quotas - for each country using criteria of population, number of seats in the European Parliament, and number of votes in the Council. On that basis we are aiming to recruit about 83 qualified Maltese citizens, including at least one senior manager and five middle managers, between now and 2010."

Recruitment of permanent EU civil servants from accession states will be based strictly on merit, with prospective officials having to pass the EU Civil Service open competitions, or concours, identical to those used for potential recruits from existing member states. EU's new inter-institutional recruitment office, the European Personnel Selection Office (EPSO), is organising the first batch of 32 recruitment competitions in for accession state candidates.

"In accordance with our commitments to achieving gender balance," Mr Kinnock added, "we are especially keen to see qualified women entering the concours. At A-level (policy staff), 33.3% recruits in 2003 were women, up from 27.6% in 2002. The proportion of women in middle management has risen from 12.2% in 1999 to 15.2% in 2003, and at senior level, from 8.4% to 11.5%.

"Priority is being given to management recruitment competitions to be organised in the spring," Mr Kinnock continued. "The heads of the EU Representation Offices for each accession state will be recruited from among the successful candidates towards the end of this year. Meanwhile, heads of delegation in the new member states - in the case of Malta, Ronald Gallimore - will continue in their posts, becoming acting Representatives as from May 1."

A shortfall in linguists for all the new EU languages is expected to last for some time. As with previous enlargements, an order of priority for the linguistic coverage is established for each language, to be progressively extended, depending on available resources.

"To meet all the EU institutions' total language needs, EPSO is seeking 135 successful candidates to be translators in every 'new' language," Mr Kinnock stated. "The Commission alone requires 60 translators for every working language, as well as 40 interpreters (20 expected to be civil servants and 20 accredited freelancers).

"While 40 of 90 Maltese candidates who applied for translators' concours showed up for the pre-selection tests, 37 were successful and were awaiting the results of the written test. However, all four of the 16 applicants for interpreters' concours invited by EPSO to take the oral test were unsuccessful."

As part of very wide-ranging reforms, the EU has tackled the controversial issues of retirement age and the so-called 'pensions crisis' of the 'aging society'. Following the member states' agreement last May to a reform of the EU Staff Regulations, EU civil servants' retirement age will be raised on May 1 from 60 to 63, with a maximum age of 67 (instead of 65 as now).

"This is in line with consistent practice in other public services as well as the Commission's support for measures to deal with the demands of an aging society", Mr Kinnock indicated.

"In fact, the average real retirement age of Commission staff is already around 63 - above the average in any member state civil service. So officials will probably work to an older age than at present, but with a new right to work part time in the last five years of their service. The early retirement option will be retained, from age 55 instead of 50, with a lower actuarial reduction in pension entitlements than previously."

However, since 2002 there has been a progressively applied, equitable early retirement scheme for 600 officials "whose skills are outdated and who cannot be expected to benefit from retraining". A small number of retired officials are used for special tasks such as serving on competition juries, their work unpaid apart from travel expenses.

The Commission is also testing two fast-spreading practices in the world of work: flexitime and teleworking. After the ongoing pilot projects, new flexitime arrangements are planned for 2005, while rules are under consideration to generalise teleworking to a maximum of 50% working time off-site, at the discretion of individual departments.

"Changes in staffing/working practices are only part of the 98 reform proposals being implemented under the Commission's March 2000 Reform Strategy Action Plan," Mr Kinnock emphasised.

"Our latest Progress Report on Reform, issued last Monday, lists numerous examples of how comprehensive modernisation of the Commission is meeting the strategic objectives of promoting higher quality service to the public, employing new means of effective planning of tasks and resources, implementing the highest modern standards of internal control and financial management, and generating cost savings.

"We have laid solid foundations for further development to reinforce the Commission's accountability, effectiveness, efficiency and essential independence. I hope to see this modernising evolution maintained, and will recommend to the incoming Commission President the appointment of a Commissioner with specific responsibility for sustaining modernisation."

Periodic media reports of huge financial scandals at the Commission are neither fair nor accurate, in Mr Kinnock's view. "Management of over 80% of the overall EU budget (totalling about €100 billion - Lm42 billion) is mainly undertaken by member states. The Court of Auditors can neither guarantee the correctness of nor 'sign off' that decentralised expenditure. Very misleading media reports disregard this reality when claiming that the finances of the Union are 'not properly accounted for and it's the fault of the Commission'.

"In fact, only a small proportion of the total Budget is deemed by the Court to be the subject of fraud or irregularity. In addition, a significant majority of investigations by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) concern external cases involving fraudulent behaviour attempted or committed by outside parties, not by people in the Commission or other Institutions. However, the Commission will not tolerate any spending which cannot be properly explained - absolutely unacceptable in a public body financed by taxpayers.

"That is one of the basic reasons for comprehensive changes introduced, which strengthen control and safeguard against human error, irregularity and attempted fraud, and improve prevention and detection systems.

"What we need to ensure now and in the future is thorough implementation of these reforms, Mr Kinnock concluded, "so far proceeding at a commendable rate".