European Commission's hire of media and communication professionals: Delays

Many Brussels media professionals and journalists are these days waiting for news from EPSO, the agency in charge of recruting staff and officials for the European institutions.

The reason is a so called "concours" which was published on 28 February 2007. It is the basis to establish a shortlist of some hundred posts in the area of communication and information within the European Commission.

For many Brusssels journalists and communication professionals (and there are quite a bit of them) this was a welcome invitation to change side. For some, already the income perspective was enough to decide to go for the competition. For others, the possibility to participate in the formulation of the communication strategy of a DG or to work within DG Communication itself was attractive enough to give up some free-time and to start studying again.

You need to study. In order to make it on the shortlist you have to be amongst those with the best marks in the pre-selection tests. These tests comprise multiple choice questions about EU integration as well as the assessment of verbal and numerical reasoning skills. The competitions, which are always published on the EPSO site, have created already a real little economy within Brussels, with many organisations offering training courses and preparatory exams and a florishing book market, from "250 multiple choice questions" to the "Ultimate EU test book".

The real EPSO tests are taking place in a building of the Belgian public administration where groups of 20 pass in parallel the computer-based recruitment exams.

The tests for the Communication and information concours are now over, but on the last day of the test period, the Commission and EPSO have admitted that there has been a problem with the publication of the notice in the Official Journal. The notice was only published in 3 langauges, the other 19 EU languages have been forgotten.

Now there will be another round of tests and the publication of results of the first round will be delayed until at least October this year.

Mrs Wallström will not be pleased. The recruitment of EU officials with in-depth knowledge in the area of media and communication goes back to her action plan for EU communication. The fresh resources should help the EU to better communicate with its citizens. It was envisaged that the new posts would be filled by January 2008, in order to prepare people for the ratification of a new EU treaty.

Have you applied for the EU concours?
What do you think of the EU hiring professional communication people?
Is changing side a problem for Brussels media?

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