Language requirements ‘an obstacle’ to UK staff in Brussels

UK nationals make up fewer than 5% of the European Commission's staff, compared with nearly 10% from France, reports BBC News. The falling number of British men and women working in the upper echelons of EU institutions risks limiting the country's influence, MPs are warning. The Commons Foreign Affairs Committee said there was a "generation gap" with senior UK officials retiring and not being replaced in the same numbers. In their report, the cross-party committee said the UK remains under-represented in Brussels and efforts to reverse that trend have not yet paid dividends. While the UK accounts for 12.5% of the EU's total population, the number of British staff working for the European Commission has fallen by 24% to 4.6% in the last seven years. While a generation of staff who started working in Brussels in the 1970s have now retired, the report concluded, they have not been replaced in the same numbers by people working their way up the EU's various institutions in recent decades.

The number of British staff with responsibility for policy development in the Council of Ministers has fallen to 4.3% while those working at senior levels in the European Parliament has fallen to 5.8%. UK nationals accounted for just 2.4% of total applicants to the EU Concours - the EU's recruitment and examination process - last year while the pass rate was on a "downward trend", the MPs noted. They said the language requirements - applicants need to demonstrate a "good level" of French and German to be considered - were one of a number of obstacles to increasing British presence in the EU's apparatus.