*Update 19.02.2025: ‘By default, all [internal] competitions will be cross-category.’ (Stay tuned: A new approach for internal competitions) This is excellent news and should now put the Commission on an even footing with the Parliament and other EU institutions. We hope that this inclusion is genuine and that the competitions are not  otherwise skewed to reduce participation.*

Original article: Very close to the end of the year, the Commission has kept up with its stated planning in its 2022-2024 cycle of internal competitions and published a number of internal competitions. Great, right? What is there to complain about? Why are we bringing this to your attention? We encourage you have a look at the very specific eligibility criteria and to consider that this is not the first time that this has happened. We’ve queried the service reasons for this and the equality of treatment on show.

• COM/AD12/2023 (number of successful candidates sought: 66)
• COM/AD10/2023 (number of successful candidates sought: 56)
• COM/AD8/2023 (number of successful candidates sought: 90)

Now, why would these internal competitions be worth our attention? Well, first, they are all for the same fields:

1. European Green Deal
2. A Union that works for people
3. A Stronger Europe in the world
4. A Modern European administration

What is however more striking is selection criteria number 5, which is identical in all three competitions:

‘Professional experience in the decision-making process of the Commission (Article 12 Commission Rules of Procedures[1]).’

If you have never heard of this article, check it out: be our guest. While ‘professional experience in the decision-making process of the Commission’ is not an unusual criteria and can mean many things (preparation of legal acts, interservice consultations, consultations with stakeholders etc.), this particular article refers to the adoption of decisions by the College in a written procedure. It is probably fair to say that most colleagues in most DGs will not have had any contact with this procedure in their entire career; even if they have other contacts with the Cabinets as part of their normal day-to-day work.

Indeed, even if you have work experience in the Cabinets of other EU institutions (say, for a judge at the Court of Justice or for a Member at the Court of Auditors), this would still not count as work experience under this particular article. We have asked HR why such an exceptionally narrow criteria was chosen for what seem to be otherwise rather general competitions and we will of course report back on their reply.

It also seems a bit contradictory to stress that ‘professional experience gained in the AD or AST function groups within the institutions or at an equivalent level in any public or private organisation within the EU or in international agencies or organisations, including non-governmental organisations (NGO)’ is taken into account, when it is very difficult to gain this specific experience outside the College and literally impossible to gain outside the Commission.

In summary, this selection criteria seems to be rather exclusive and will prevent many otherwise high-quality candidates from scoring the necessary points to pass to the next phase of the competition. Therefore, in the interest of efficiency (no need to let potential candidates waste their time on this competition) and to have a clear indication of the target population for this competition, Generation 2004 would like to propose a renaming of these competitions:

COM/AD12/2023             ⇒           CAB/AD12/2023

COM/AD10/2023             ⇒           CAB/AD10/2023

COM/AD8/2023               ⇒           CAB/AD8/2023

As always, we are happy to receive your feedback. We would especially like to hear from colleagues who believe that they could score points in this specific selection criteria.

Please do not hesitate to get in touch with us or leave a comment below.

If you appreciate our work, please consider becoming a member of Generation 2004.

[1] Commission Decision of 24 February 2010, C(2010) 1200 final.