Suspended EPSO Competitions - What We Know And What To Expect

A lot of frustration has been mounting over the lack of EPSO competition announcements this year. Candidates and would-be EU officials, eager to start their path towards an EU career, have been left disappointedly waiting for major EPSO competitions to be announced. To know more about what to expect, we tried to highlight the current situation and what you can expect next.

The EPSO system

To become an EU official, applicants have to register and qualify for the competitions organised by EPSO - the European Personnel Selection Office. Offering the EU Institutions a centralised, standardised and transparent selection system, EPSO competitions have been successfully organised since its establishment in 2002.

To reflect the changes in personnel selection, its recruitment process was reformed in 2010, placing greater importance on competencies. Since a permanent job at the EU Institutions is a great career opportunity with many benefits, this structured selection system works to provide an unbiased, neutral personnel selection system to find the most suitable ones from among the large number of candidates. Given its high level of integrity, it also avoids nepotism of any kind.

The reason why EPSO competitions have been suspended

The linguistic diversity of EU institutions is enshrined in the EU Treaties, stating that there are 24 Official EU Languages. EPSO introduced the '[EU] mother tongue' psychometric tests from 2011 onwards, hence candidates applying for an EPSO competition are able to take the Pre-Selection tests in any of the 24 Official EU Languages.

Candidates are still required to correspond with EPSO in English, French or German (the working languages of the EU Institutions). To test their fluency in these languages, the Assessment Centre phase of each competition is run in English, French or German (instead of all the 24 languages).

Though there have been earlier court cases against EPSO's language regime, more recently the Italian and Spanish governments have challenged the above approach.

In short, they argue that the EPSO competitions are discriminatory, because of the requirement for all candidates to have a working knowledge of either German, English or French. While this seems totally reasonable given that  these three are the EU’s working languages, the EU General Court did actually find the EPSO practice unlawful.

In its judgment of September 24, 2015 (joined cases T‑124/13 and T‑191/13), the Court found EPSO’s linguistic regime objectionable on the two grounds raised by the Italian and Spanish governments. Firstly, it held that it was unacceptable for EPSO not to communicate with candidates in languages other than the three working languages. In essence, the Court expects EPSO to ensure that candidates are able to submit their application in any of the 24 Official EU Languages and any EPSO correspondence with applicants must also be in the language they chose for their application.

Secondly, the Court also annulled the requirement to choose English, French or German as the second language of the selection (essentially the language of the Assessment Centre phase). This again has been viewed as discrimination on the basis of language.

EPSO’s panic reaction: exam suspensions

After the publication of the judgement, EPSO exams were immediately suspended. This caused speculation as to when new  competitions, especially the much-awaited AD5 Generalist, will be announced. Since then EPSO has only published a few specialist competitions at the request of the EPSO Management Board in order to meet urgent recruitment needs.

Currently the situation is at a gridlock with the publication of competitions suspended until further notice. EPSO and the EU Institutions put in place modified arrangements regarding the language usage in EU staff selections.

Is this the end of English, French and German as the working languages of the EU?

English, French and German remain the most widely used languages within the EU Institutions. It is unrealistic and unworkable that EPSO would select candidates who do not speak a word of English, French or German and expect them to be 'operational from day one', that is,  be able to communicate efficiently in their daily work. EU institutions would not be able to operate effectively if this language regime wasn’t in place.

However, this is not the first time that EPSO’s language regime has been challenged.

In 2007 EPSO only published its competitions in the English, French and German editions of the ‘Official Journal of the European Union’. The Italian government challenged this, stating that it disadvantaged those applicants whose mother tongue was not English, French or German.

The case also criticised the lack of clear rules for why the second language choice was limited to only these three languages. Already at the time, the Court of Justice ruled in favour of the plaintiff (the Italian government).

Since then the Official Journal of the EU and all EPSO Notice of Competitions have been published in the 24 Official EU Languages. While Italy did admit that “full multilingualism would impair the effective functioning of the institutions”¹, the Court once again ruled that the EU Commission had “infringed the principle of non-discrimination on the grounds of language”, because it had failed to justify through objective and reasonable grounds why a limit on the second language (that is, limiting those to English, French or German) was essential.

There are indeed grounds for this second language limitation, as long as EPSO can justify very clearly the reasons why it is vital that this second language limitation be imposed, and state this in each Notice of Competition.

EPSO’s response to the Court decision

Unsurprisingly, EPSO has decided to keep the current system (which seems to make perfect sense), but has recently 'tested' a new legal approach. A note on language requirements in open competitions, outlined under the “Justification Of The Language Regime For This Selection Procedure”², is inserted via each competition’s ANNEX that states:

• New recruits must be immediately operational:
  • The EU Institutions require recruits to know a combination of languages that will enable them to carry out their duties and work effectively with other members of staff.
  • During the recruitment process certain tests must be set that examine a candidate’s ability to use one of the working languages of the EU institutions, when the use of their mother tongue is not practical. By not testing such a requirement, many candidates who do not satisfy the daily language needs of their role would be selected.
  • Those wishing to work in The EU civil service are willing to join an international organisation, where employees must make use of vehicular languages to undertake the task required of them.
  • To ensure that the above is attained EPSO candidates must select their second competition language from a limited number of official EU languages – those being English, French or German
• A limit on which languages are primarily used is also due to budgetary and operational constraints. Besides the impracticality of organising an Assessment Centre for each and every competition in the 24 Official EU Languages, it would cause serious resource implications and quite simply, the EU institutions’ inability to meet their recruitment needs.
• The EPSO Management Board determines what languages are to be used for each EPSO competition based on the specific requirements of the EU institutions or bodies they are recruiting for. Since, English French and German are the languages most frequently spoken, translated and used for communication by staff at the EU Institutions, it is almost certain that candidates will need to demonstrate a working understanding of at least one of these languages in all EPSO Competitions.
• While the stable elements on the EPSO website, competition notices, competition application forms and the general rules governing open competitions will be published in the 24 Official EU Languages, languages used for communication with applicants are specified in each EPSO Notice of Competition.
• EPSO is currently setting up an online application procedure to run in all 24 Official EU Languages.
• Mass communication with EPSO candidates will be undertaken in a limited number of official EU languages for efficiency purposes, but will be in either the candidate’s selected first or second language, as stated in the official Notice of Competition.
• Candidates may contact EPSO in any of the 24 Official EU Languages, however for quick turnaround of correspondence (negating the need for a translation) applicants are encouraged to select from a limited number of languages

Will EPSO’s solution work?

From the perspective of candidates, nothing much has really changed in EPSO’s linguistic regime. Candidates are still required to choose English, French or German as their second language and as the main language of communication with EPSO.

Currently, this seems to be working for the specialist competitions, but it seems EPSO has not yet “dared” to use the same approach for the generalist AD5 exam - which is eagerly awaited by us all. But, if it's legal approach works, EPSO's Management Board may decide to go ahead and announce the AD5 generalist competition after the summer break. While this is yet unconfirmed, we have our fingers tightly crossed.

According to EPSO’s forward planning, CAST (contract agent) competitions are also to be announced in the autumn, which may be a temporary substitute to the competitions leading to permanent contracts. Whether the CAST exams or the AD5 generalist exams are going to be mutually open or one is going to prevail over the other is anyone’s guess at this point.

In the grand scheme of things, the above legal challenge seems to only be a minor legal issue

While it has caused some temporary disruptions, the EU Institutions are constantly in need of new, top-quality staff to ensure the smooth running of the European Union. EPSO’s effective and proven selection system will definitely remain, but it is expected that a few legal technicalities must first be resolved before the major competitions are announced. The amendments EPSO has already put in place with the specialist competitions (to address the ruling delivered by the General Court), are a strong positive step towards this disruption being resolved and hopefully indicates that everything will be back to normal very soon.

Update: 18/07/16

EPSO has just announced the launch of a new career site in all 24 EU languages. This is an indication that EPSO is seeking ways to comply with the EU General Court's decision and is likely permitting the application process (and the communication with EPSO) in any of the 24 official languages. We believe that the Assessment Centre will remain to be conducted in English, French and German and EPSO will elaborate on the reasons why it must be so.

In any event, this development reinforces expectations that EPSO exams are about to re-launch soon.

Update: 07/10/16 - Concerning the General Court’s recent  judgement about EPSO tests