THE STAGE STORY

Or How to Get an Administrative Traineeship

at the European Commission in Brussels or Luxemburg

© Johannes Gehringer

(disclaimer: the views expressed are purely those of the writer and may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the European Commission; the information in this article in only partly based on material published by the Commission and does not commit this institution)

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. What Is the Stage?
3. What Are the Requirements for Getting a Stage?
4. How to Apply for the Stage
5. How to Lobby for the Stage
6. What You Can Expect from the Stage
7. What Else Should You Know?
8. What Is the Distribution of Nationals from Different Countries?

Introduction

What Is the Stage?

PLEASE NOTE: Updated official information on traineeships in EU institutions can be found at the EPSO website and specifically at the European Commission traineeship site (this hint was published in March 2004).

The Stage is a paid or unpaid administrative traineeship of three to five months at an institution of the European Union and foremost at the European Commission.

There are two five-month schemes ('promotions' in French) every year, beginning on 1 March and 1 October with places for roughly 750 stagiaires available at each term (compared to 70 stagiaires at the European Parliament -- see the number of stagiaires taken by other institutions here). The Web site www.Stagiaire.com has more about the stage.

At the European Commission your can work in one of the 26 directorates-general (DG) and other services, units and agencies. Take a look at the list and the tasks of the different entities of the Commission at the Europa Web server. Note also that 35 stagiaires are working at Commission DGs and services in Luxembourg.

Officially, the purpose of the scheme is "to give trainees a general idea of the objectives and problemes of European integration, to provide them with practical knowlegde of the workings of Commission departments", to allow them to gain personal experience and further the knowledge gained during their studies or careers to date.

Stagiaires can prepare their PhD thesis or other scientific reports in the framework of the Stage by using a part of their time to do research on EU related topics.

The Stage does not mean admission as EU official! But from experience, I can tell you that it is likely to get an EU related job in a consultancy or other interesting job placements in Brussels after the Stage, if not an extension or a temporary one-year contract from your Commission unit boss (the so called 'conseiller' or adviser). Your insights and knowledge also help you to better master the EU 'concours' or competition for EU jobs.

What Are the Requirements for Getting a Stage?

Be a university graduate or a student with at least 4 years or 8 semesters and be younger than 30 years (this is negotiable). National public officials or private sector employees with at least three years' experience may also apply (called stagiaire-fonctionnaires).

Further selection criteria:

• Language skills: Have thorough knowledge of an official EU language and sufficient knowledge of another language of the Community (in fact, however, English is a must and French a big plus in everyday life in the Commission, both are used at unit meetings in certain units without any translation. Some services are traditionally more oriented towards French (agriculture), others tend more towards English (telecommunications); Deutsch is widely used in the German cabinets and informally, but mainly among German native speakers); applicants from a non-EU country only need to have good knowledge of one Community language.
• Applicants are ranked according to a certain geographical distribution and according your study level (or success, 'Studienerfolg')
• Preference is given to those who have written or write a study on European integration
• Preferred are also private and public sector employees whose activities require a profound knowledge of the Community's working.

You also need three persons that can recommend you. Choose and/or contact persons from public life who you are familiar with and vice versa. The best persons are those who can also lobby for you.

Applicants whose studies cover subject areas and majors other than law, economics, business administration, political science or international relations stand much better chances to get selected. Especially if you choose a DG where technical or agricultural expertise is sought for (DG III-Industry, XIII-Telecom, VI-Agriculture, etc.). Nevertheless the bulk of stagiaires still comes from the studies mentioned above.

Also, believe it or not, it is an outright advantage to be a woman when you apply for the Stage: the percentage of female stagiaires on the 1996 summer Stage rose to more than 60 %!

How to Apply for the Stage

Get the two-sided application form, fill it out properly, have a nice picture take of yourself to impress the selection committee ;-) and send it in before the deadline (31 March for 1 October and 30 September for 1 March). You can get an application form for the Commission Stage at:

• Your national government agency which deals with EU affairs (EU Staatssekretariat, EU ministry, Foreign Office, and the like)
• Your national Commission representation (EU countries) or Commission delegation (consult the phone book of the capital city for this purpose)
• The European Commission's personnel directorate-general, recruitment agency:

• The European Commission's Training Office:

Each candidate is asked to select three directorates-general or services for which he or she would like to work.

According to one former stagiaire, "to be considered for some departments, such as DG I (external relations) or DG IV (competition) or the Legal Service, you have to put them as first choice."

Once the applications are in, 16 juries from all member countries sit down to draw up a 'short-list' of around 1,700 -- less than a fifth of those who applied -- who are then placed in the so-called 'blue book'. This is distributed to each DG, via the assistant to the director-general, which then choose the candidates they feel are suitable. In theory, this is decided on the basis of any relevant knowledge they may have picked up in their studies or careers. Language skills are also an advantage. But to have a genuine chance of getting on to the scheme, candidates need to lobby hard even before the 'blue book' hits Commission desks.

A relatively even mix of nationalities is ensured by a rough quota system operated by the Bureau des Stages (see table below). Nevertheless certain nationalities remain under-represented. One reason is the difference in number of applications. Italians apply twice as much as Germans, often due to the worse job prospects for young Southern Europeans.

How to Lobby for the Stage

Lobbying is almost mandatory to get the Stage even if it is just one simple phone call to the right person in the Commission. Rarely people got in without doing anything (the lucky or gifted ones?). Lobbying unfortunately doesn't always fit into one's national culture (British !) so that it takes an extra effort to overcome one's shyness to cold call someone in far-away Brussels to arrange a job interview with him.

Lobbying is not an easy feat, to tell the truth and to speak about my experience. It may be time consuming, costly and mindcracking. But it is an excellent opportunity to prepare for your later job hunt or to determine your market value :-).

Here's is a list of hints compiled from what I did or what others told me how they did it:

Choose (eminent) professors, politicians, or senior national or EU officials (or others, see below). Contact them if you don't know anybody personally yet.Tell them why you are worth being promoted, for instance because you are studying EU politics, you wrote your thesis on a topic related to his/her field of competence, etc.

The first obstacle is the blue book, where three times as many people are shortlisted as are finally taken. It is published and distributed among the Commission units one or two months after the application deadline.

Once again, to overcome this hurdle you need some kind of political clout or mere luck!

Some applicants already contact the Commission services where they wish to work by mail or phone or present themselves long before the deadline to get 'piston' (support) by them.

As a next step, once you get a letter saying you are shortlisted in the 'livre bleu', you should basically do the same, i.e. call in to talk to your future boss, usually a head of unit. If possible arrange a meeting with him. This might cause you high costs when you have to fly across Europe just to get a Stage. Of course, having a couple of interviews in your pocket will ensure a higher success rate of finally being accepted.

But one thing remains rather without a solution, namely where to get all the necessary information on where to work exactly, in which unit or directorate of a chosen directorate-general and who exactly to contact, where to find the phone number etc.

So far only few DGs have published a list of names of EU officials with their functions and phone numbers. This is the case with DG XIII which I used. Have a look at the DGs of the Commission on the Europa server (http://europa.eu.int) for all relevant information which will extend its scope in the future! Contact your EU representation or ask bookstores specialized in EU literature if they have a Commission 'organigramme' (organisational structure chart) or something similar which details all Commission entities. You can also call the central telephone operator of the Commission on +32-2-299.11.11 to have yourself connected to the specific unit or person you want to talk to.

Furthermore, ask university professors holding lectures on legal, political, social or economic EU topics for their advice on who to contact.

People you may contact to help you before or after the publishing of the blue book are your local MEP (member of the European Parliament), the cabinet(s) of your country´s commissioner(s), the stage coordinator of each DG and/or your country's permanent representation and the EU ambassador. You may also attend EU discussion groups in your country (in Austria there is the 'Europa Club Wien' held once a month, organized by Bank Austria, Renngasse 2, 1010 Wien; call up the bank's organisational office for dates). Another possibility to be taken as stagiaire is to work for free at the local representation or delegation of the Commission to get contacts; a stagiaire from Berlin went this way. Further information resources on the EU on the WWW.

What You Can Expect from the Stage

Benefits:

• The best traineeship in terms of social life and political insights worldwide!
• Life in a multicultural / international setting: feel and get a European consciousness and identity (but no brainwashing!) by communicating with young people and functionaries from all over Europe (of course, mainly from the 15 EU countries)
• 650 stagiaires/trainees/interns plus up to 250 stagiaires-fonctionnaires (sent by their governments and authorities), mostly from the 15 EU countries, but also from further 23 countries in the world; thus creating a truly European, if not international flair!
• Social life: weekly parties organized by a stagiaire committee elected at the beginning of the Stage; movie previews; joint visits to museums exhibits; dance lessons;
• On Thursday you can crowd up with other stagiaires after work at the Nouvelle Rotonde, a Commission café
• Organized trips at the beginning of the stage to famous cities in the vicinity (Brugge, Ghent, Antwerp, Amsterdam)
• A three day excursions to plenary sessions of the European Parliament in Strassburg and to other institutions based in Alsace's capital (Council of Europe, Eurocorps, Arte)
• Two big trips to major cities in Europe (for instance Barcelona, Berlin, or Prague)
• A weekly copied stagiaire bulletin called 'Le Stagiaire' containing party announcements, critiques of events, controversial articles written by stagiaires (Greeks vs. Turks, Northern Europeans vs. Southern Europeans !!), gossip from the stagiaire parties; in short, basically everything what a stagiaire has to know!
• Visits to NATO HQ in Brussels
• A one day excursion to Luxemburg´s EU institutions (European Court of Justice, European Investment Bank, European Court of Auditors)
• National parties in the second half of the Stage organized by stagiaires of the corresponding countries plus an ACP and Latin American party.
• A European Ball as the highlight of the Stage towards the end of the term.
• You will particularly develop a lot of contacts with other stagiaires of your DG due to your joint affiliation and due to a shared working place (some Commission buildings are located outside the European quarter, of which a certain number on the SE outskirts of Brussels)
• The city of Brussels itself, a cosmopolitan capital city with many cultural events and attractions such as film festivals, museums, flea markets, christmas markets etc. Brussels also boasts plenty of nice cafés and restaurants to dine out, sports facilities, centrally located parks, architectural masterpieces and so on.
• Many receptions by representation offices of regions, states or lobbyist groups after work with or without a certain purpose (vernissages, exhibitions, celebrations). The Austrians in particular are well-known for their frequent and appreciated receptions where you can eat and drink for free!
• The Brussels climate is moderate in winter compared to the continental climate of Austria and Germany or Scandinavia.

Strong arguments in favour of doing a Stage as far as political and administrative matters are concerned:

• Get a personal feel and an inside perspective for the EU institutions, its functioning, the EU officials, the buildings, the European quarter of Brussels. Understand the shortcomings of the EU; join the EU critics with your newly acquired expert knowledge; be on the pulse of time; be where Europe happens!
• A three day conference will be held at the beginning of the Stage for all new stagiaires to introduce them to the whole range of current topics, hot issues and areas of competence of the Commission
• Listen to a Council of Ministers session (EU Council) in the new Justus Lipsius building
• Assist speeches and debates during the plenary session of the EP (although open to everyone) or go to EP committee sessions held in Brussels
• Join discussions with EU officials on current hot topics (organized by stagiaires)
• Within your directorate-general, depending on the initiative of the people involved, a series of lectures on internal topics will be held for the stagiaires to make them familiar with the workings and tasks of the specific areas of the DG.

Drawbacks of the Stage:

• Out of 650 stagiaires, only 450 are paid by the Commission. Even then you only get BEF 28,000, about US$800 or ATS 9300. Austrians are lucky because those who are not paid by Brussels receive the same amount as a postgraduate grant from the Austrian Ministry of Science and Research (There are, however, plans to reduce the number of stagiaires to 450 to avoid discrimination between paid and unpaid trainees).
  The small amount of money will probably not cover all the expenses during the Stage except that you choose rather cheap accommodation.
• Highly competitive selection process: 9 % to be taken (8000+ applicants)

What Else Should You Know?

Accommodaton is widely available in Brussels. Rent ranges from BEF 7,500 for a single room with a family and/or with other stagiaires where the toilet and shower is in the hallway to BEF 12,000 - 15,000 where you share a larger appartment with other stagiaires. A small single flat (garconniere) equiped with everything is about BEF 15,000 while larger appartments for singles rise in prise beyond 20,000.

It is recommended to look for an place to stay early, preferable in the month preceding the starting month or at least a couple of days before the official beginning.

Since your workplace and many bars (Papa Joe's), pubs (the hang-outs most in demand are Wild Geese and Kitty O'Shea's) and restaurants where you will meet your new friends are located in the European quarter around Rond Point Schuman it is advisable to look for accomodation in that neighborhood.

Many stagiaires, however, also choose their appartments in adjacent neighborhoods (Ixelles, quartier Léopold, Schaerbeek).

What Is the Distribution of Nationals from Different Countries?

The following numbers are my personal estimation and accounts from my fellow stagiaires from the winter stage 1995/96. In the future those numbers will be downsized.

Italy                 100 or 120, 160 in the summer stage 1996!
Spain                 80
United Kingdom        80
Germany               68, only 4 from the former DDR/GDR!
Greece                45
France                45
Irland                31
Denmark               30
Austria               27
Sweden                25
Netherlands                             22 in the summer stage 1996
Finnland              16
Switzerland            6
Norway                 4 or 6
Canada               2-3
USA                  2-3
etc.

In the winter stage 1997/98 there are 650 stagiaires out of whom 53 are from non-EU Member States. These EU foreigners come from about 30 countries out of a applicant pool of 80 non-EU countries. The total number of applicants was about 8000.

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Last Updated: 16 Feb 2002.