State lobbies for Irish-only recruitment drives in EU

The Irish government has lobbied for the European Commission to approve Irish-only recruitment drives to counter a collapse in the number of Irish officials working within European Union institutions.

A cliff-edge of senior Irish officials reaching retirement age is expected to see the number of EU officials with Irish nationality collapse by about a third by 2025, according to an internal government document seen by the Irish Times.

Since 2015, only 22 Irish candidates have passed the generalist and specialist competitions to join the European Commission, excluding linguistics, which is insufficient to replace the 69 Irish officials who are due to depart.

Though EU officials are civil servants that work for all 27 member states, there are concerns within the government that a declining number of Irish officials within the EU could lead to a serious loss of an Irish perspective and national interests being overlooked.

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At a meeting in June, the head of the EU’s recruitment office told the Irish government that Irish-only recruitment drives could be “used as a corrective measure” when a member state has fallen below a “threshold of representation” within the EU institutions, according to an internal document.

Several other EU member states that are also underrepresented within EU institutions have also been pushing for such hiring drives that are only open to one nationality. The European Parliament is understood to have taken the first step towards future nationality-based recruitment drives, by preparing the ‘implementing provisions’ or technical groundwork, something that may lead to other institutions following suit.

There is precedent for such recruitment drives to be held, as they have taken place when new member states have joined the union. A large bulk of Irish EU officials joined at the time of Ireland’s accession in the 1970s, many of them going on to reach senior positions, and are now set to retire.

However, there are concerns within the government that the European Commission views nationality-based competitions as a “last resort”.

While the executive has accepted the principle of holding Irish-only recruitment drives, a decision on whether to hold one is set to be delayed until the start of 2024, when the collapse in the number of Irish EU officials may be well under way.

This delay is to allow the Commission to evaluate whether Ireland’s plan to increase recruitment to EU roles has worked to fix the problem in the interim, without the nationality-based competitions being required.

The existing recruitment plan has involved promoting EU careers in the education system and offering support and mentoring to applicants through the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Minister of State for European Affairs Thomas Byrne described the decrease in Irish officials as “very problematic” and said Ireland was “already below where we should be in terms of our population.”

People in Ireland who speak another language than English at home, such as the children of people who emigrated from eastern Europe, are among those being encouraged to apply for jobs in the EU, as Irish applicants often struggle with the requirement to speak two EU languages.

“Native English is a big advantage, but we do need that second language to be spoken to a very high level, and that’s something where we fall down,” Mr Byrne said.

A spokeswoman for the European Commission said that the national recruitment plan was “already yielding results in terms of increased numbers” applying.

“Nationality based open competitions could be used following an analysis of the impact of action plans for underrepresented Member States, but they would also need to respect the important principle of merit that will remain the first criterion for recruitment,” the spokeswoman said in an emailed statement.