2004 enlargement: accession to the Union, recruitment of officials

PURPOSE : to introduce special temporary measures for the recruitment of officials from the candidate countries for the EU institutions. CONTENT : this proposal concerns the recruitment aspect of the forthcoming enlargement. In previous enlargements, specific measures were adopted to recruit nationals of the countries that were joining the EU. This required a Council Regulation temporarily derogating from the relevant provisions of the Staff Regulations concerning recruitment. The current enlargement process is the largest that the EU has ever undertaken. This leads to several novel features in the draft Regulation compared to previous similar regulations. The main features of the proposal are: - the derogation from the Staff Regulations will last until 31 December 2010, longer than in previous enlargements. For the enlargement involving Austria, Finland and Sweden the derogation covered five years. This is not long enough. Hence seven years are proposed in this case; - the Regulation foresees the organisation of competitions for the selection of officials from the new Member States on a national basis. Nationals of the current Member States will be excluded from such competitions; - competitions exclusively for nationals of the new Member States may be held, and lists of successful candidates drawn up, before the accession of these countries to the EU. A country must have joined the Union before its nationals may be appointed as officials to a post with the Institutions. - the Institutions may derogate from the requirement to advertise vacant posts within the Institutions. The Institutions may, however, give publicity to vacant posts if they so wish. -the transition period is seven years. Over this period it will also be necessary to replace departing officials from the existing Member States. The Regulation therefore also provides for the possibility of organising competitions for the selection of nationals from the current 15 Member States during the transition period. Nationals of the future Member States would be excluded from such competitions. Each Institution will determine the number of officials from the candidate countries to be recruited under the provisions of this Regulation.�