*Update 19.02.2025: ‘By default, all [internal] competitions will be cross-category.’ (Stay tuned: A new approach for internal competitions [1]) This is excellent news and should now put the Commission on an even footing with the Parliament and other EU institutions [2]. We hope that this inclusion is genuine and that the competitions are not otherwise skewed [3] to reduce participation. Participation in these competitions can be done in parallel to the certification: use all your options!*
Original article: We send you this in advance, so that you can be ready for whatever the future holds: the old ‘hope for the best and prepare for the worst’. The draft list of the (normally 100) Commission certification applicants selected for interview with the Joint Certification Panel is normally published each year 5-6 January (to be published: administrative notices [4]). To those of you who find your names listed there, well done and good luck! You’ve come this far, keep up the hard work! To everyone else, all is not lost, don’t give up just yet! You still have the option of appealing your non-inclusion, essentially asking the Joint Certification Committee to have a second look at your file. In January 2023 [5] 28 colleagues appealed and 4 of them were successful.
Who can appeal? [6] Anyone: both the colleagues whose application was considered eligible, but who were not selected for interview and the colleagues whose application was not considered eligible. You can all appeal, but you must act fast. You have only 5 Commission working days starting from the publication of the list.
Please organise your time and resources to be ready for whatever happens. Check any written feedback provided within your sysper certification file, when it becomes available, and use it as a basis for your appeal. If you have feedback from previous certification applications, check that too. Feedback can be found under calculations > selection for interview.
Please note that your appeal must be in the language you will use for certification (English/French). Check you have the button within sysper to start the formal process and to paste your appeal text once you have it ready.
Check out all of our articles on Certification [7] to understand the process and the pitfalls.
As always, we would love to hear from you. Please do not hesitate to get in touch with us [8] or leave a comment below.
If you appreciate our work, please consider becoming a member of Generation 2004 [9].
Obsolete updates
Update 08.01.2024, the list is available here [10].