Queue here for the gravy train
Welcome to the gravy train to the 10,000 of you who have applied for the 1,000 European Commission jobs on offer to Polish nationals.
Yes, one of the perks of EU membership for your nation is a stab at joining the most luxuriously treated civil service in the world. According to legend you get a job for life, a limousine, access to an exclusive cut-price supermarket, cheap petrol, help with your mortgage, allowances for your kids until the age of 25 and a career structure which could immediately land you a job carrying a salary hundreds of times bigger than Leszek Miller's. Or Kwaśniewski's. Just being a plain old chauffeur toting commission mandarins and Euro MPs around provides a bankable salary about 20 times the minimum wage in Poland, plus the perks stated above.
So it is absolutely no wonder that there were 25,000 applications for the first 500 commission jobs to be advertised in the 10 candidate countries. Some have come from the Brussels offices of the candidates, with as many as one in five diplomats seeking to make the leap of a few hundred yards from the national embassy to the European fountain of prosperity. And wouldn't you too, bearing in mind the pitiful rewards to be earned from labouring in the service of the Polish state, for example, compared to what you would make across the road in the European Commission, the Parliament, the Council of Ministers, the court in Luxembourg, or the myriad other bodies which collectively make up the EU?
Slovakia's ambassador (he's still there at the moment) pleads that it's a sign that people are really interested in European integration, and many are, but with a take-home pay packet of €4,000 a month for starters for university graduates, there may just be more to it than that. For the average Slovak or Pole, €4,000 goes a long way, but before those who fail to get these jobs go out and shoot themselves, let me warn you of the downside: it is hard work.
In total, there will be 3,500 people taken on from the 10 countries, but by the time they join, some of the commission's internal staff reforms will begin to bite. Out goes the cheap supermarket and petrol for a start, and you don't get a limousine - that's just one of the myths. But yes, you will still get considerable extra payments to maintain your kids, a special exchange rate for some of your salary to boost it even more, and pay for travelling home to vote or to change your socks.
The net effect is that the legendary gravy train - a term you use at your peril in the company of commission folk - is still on the tracks, but some of the more extravagant carriages have been decoupled. And you will work: there are new staff assessment programmes to weed out malingerers and make sure only fast-track types stay in the fast lane. And the European civil service culture of early-in-and-late-out is very strong in Brussels. Take note, down there in Warsaw.
"The problem," said one of my colleagues who made the leap, "is that in the decent commission jobs you are not expected to be the first to leave in the evening. Even if you've finished every scrap of work you can possibly do, there is a reluctance to be the first out the door in case people think you're a slacker."
All that, of course, is assuming you get in. And the days are long gone when the commission would choose people just because they were the right nationality to fill the quota. In other words, it is not enough these days to be Polish to get one of the 1,000 jobs allocated for Poles. You'll have to pass the tough entrance exam - the concours - and speak at least a couple of languages. For many Warsaw civil servants, that's going to be a tough condition from the start.
So if it all sounds attractive, start brushing up now on your European Treaties and the relevance of global governance in a multilateral society vis-a-vis the evolution of corporate social responsibility, and I'll see you in Brussels soon.
And you can buy the drinks, you overpaid fat-cat eurocrat.
Geoff Meade is the European Union editor of the Press Association.
Yes, one of the perks of EU membership for your nation is a stab at joining the most luxuriously treated civil service in the world. According to legend you get a job for life, a limousine, access to an exclusive cut-price supermarket, cheap petrol, help with your mortgage, allowances for your kids until the age of 25 and a career structure which could immediately land you a job carrying a salary hundreds of times bigger than Leszek Miller's. Or Kwaśniewski's. Just being a plain old chauffeur toting commission mandarins and Euro MPs around provides a bankable salary about 20 times the minimum wage in Poland, plus the perks stated above.
So it is absolutely no wonder that there were 25,000 applications for the first 500 commission jobs to be advertised in the 10 candidate countries. Some have come from the Brussels offices of the candidates, with as many as one in five diplomats seeking to make the leap of a few hundred yards from the national embassy to the European fountain of prosperity. And wouldn't you too, bearing in mind the pitiful rewards to be earned from labouring in the service of the Polish state, for example, compared to what you would make across the road in the European Commission, the Parliament, the Council of Ministers, the court in Luxembourg, or the myriad other bodies which collectively make up the EU?
Slovakia's ambassador (he's still there at the moment) pleads that it's a sign that people are really interested in European integration, and many are, but with a take-home pay packet of €4,000 a month for starters for university graduates, there may just be more to it than that. For the average Slovak or Pole, €4,000 goes a long way, but before those who fail to get these jobs go out and shoot themselves, let me warn you of the downside: it is hard work.
In total, there will be 3,500 people taken on from the 10 countries, but by the time they join, some of the commission's internal staff reforms will begin to bite. Out goes the cheap supermarket and petrol for a start, and you don't get a limousine - that's just one of the myths. But yes, you will still get considerable extra payments to maintain your kids, a special exchange rate for some of your salary to boost it even more, and pay for travelling home to vote or to change your socks.
The net effect is that the legendary gravy train - a term you use at your peril in the company of commission folk - is still on the tracks, but some of the more extravagant carriages have been decoupled. And you will work: there are new staff assessment programmes to weed out malingerers and make sure only fast-track types stay in the fast lane. And the European civil service culture of early-in-and-late-out is very strong in Brussels. Take note, down there in Warsaw.
"The problem," said one of my colleagues who made the leap, "is that in the decent commission jobs you are not expected to be the first to leave in the evening. Even if you've finished every scrap of work you can possibly do, there is a reluctance to be the first out the door in case people think you're a slacker."
All that, of course, is assuming you get in. And the days are long gone when the commission would choose people just because they were the right nationality to fill the quota. In other words, it is not enough these days to be Polish to get one of the 1,000 jobs allocated for Poles. You'll have to pass the tough entrance exam - the concours - and speak at least a couple of languages. For many Warsaw civil servants, that's going to be a tough condition from the start.
So if it all sounds attractive, start brushing up now on your European Treaties and the relevance of global governance in a multilateral society vis-a-vis the evolution of corporate social responsibility, and I'll see you in Brussels soon.
And you can buy the drinks, you overpaid fat-cat eurocrat.
Geoff Meade is the European Union editor of the Press Association.
