Los funcionarios titulares

Las competencias de la Comisión y su entorno de trabajo multicultural la convierten en un organismo único en su género.Son tantas y tan variadas sus actividades que es muy posible que exista justo el tipo de empleo que mejor corresponda a su perfil, sea éste cual sea.

Los funcionarios de la Comisión desempeñan todo tipo de tareas, clasificadas en dos grandes categorías:asistentes (AST) y administradores (AD).

Como administrador desempeñará usted funciones clave en los procesos legislativos y presupuestarios de la UE, desde coordinar las políticas económicas de los Estados miembros hasta participar en negociaciones con terceros países, gestionar la Política Agrícola Común o garantizar la interpretación uniforme y aplicación efectiva del Derecho comunitario.Sea cual fuere la tarea que realice, la variedad de actividades de la Unión Europea hace que ya desde el principio de su carrera profesional pueda tener que asumir responsabilidades considerables.

Como asistente desempeñará usted importantes tareas de gestión interna de la Comisión, en particular sobre asuntos presupuestarios y financieros, gestión de personal, informática y gestión de archivos.También puede ayudar a aplicar políticas en los distintos sectores de actividad de la UE, realizar tareas administrativas y de secretaría y garantizar el eficaz funcionamiento de una unidad administrativa.

La selección de funcionarios se efectúa por medio de oposiciones generales organizadas por la Oficina de Selección de Personal de las Comunidades Europeas (EPSO).La EPSO no sólo selecciona personal para la Comisión, sino para todas las demás instituciones europeas.Las oposiciones se publican en el Diario Oficial y se anuncian en el sitio web de la EPSO.

Para aprobar las oposiciones de cualquier nivel deberá usted demostrar sus capacidades, conocimientos, iniciativa y motivación.Como es lógico, para participar en el proceso de selección deberá cumplir los requisitos de admisión (cualificaciones, experiencia profesional, etc.) a la oposición correspondiente, publicados en el Diario Oficial.

Los requisitos serán siempre de un rigor igual o superior al de las normas mínimas de admisión de asistentes y administradores establecidas en el Article 5(3) del Estatuto. En todo caso, deberá ser ciudadano o ciudadana de uno de los Estados miembros de la Unión Europea (salvo determinadas excepciones para los preparativos de las ampliaciones de la UE), haber cumplido, en su caso, sus obligaciones de servicio militar, reunir las condiciones de aptitud física necesarias para el ejercicio de sus funciones, ofrecer garantías de moralidad y tener conocimientos profundos de una de las lenguas oficiales de la Unión Europea y satisfactorios de otra.

Las oposiciones suelen desarrollarse en dos etapas, una escrita y otra oral.Los candidatos se someten a pruebas escritas sobre sus conocimientos y cualificaciones, que incluyen cuestionarios de tipo test sobre integración europea, conocimientos lingüísticos y razonamiento verbal y numérico.A los candidatos que aprueban la primera fase se les convoca a una entrevista con un tribunal de selección.En el sitio de la EPSO puede consultarse el calendario de oposiciones actuales y previstas, junto con ejemplos de cuestionarios.

También pueden organizarse oposiciones específicas para puestos de dirección intermedia y superior.Más información...

If you are one of the candidates to make it through the final stages of a competition, you will receive a letter confirming that you have been placed on the reserve list - a pool of candidates that can be drawn on for future recruitment. These lists are published in the Official Journal. Once on a reserve list, candidates can be recruited to a vacant post by any interested service in the Commission.

Commission departments look at reserve lists after they have considered internal candidates when they are searching for the right people to fill vacant posts. To ensure that the information made available is constantly up to date, you are invited to enter your CV (and to keep it up to date) via the application EU CV online .

If you are identified as a potential candidate for a specific vacancy, you will be invited to an interview with the recruiting service. You will also need to undergo a medical check by the Commission's medical service, before being formally recruited.

Ultimately, you will receive a formal job offer from the Personnel and Administration Directorate-General confirming that you have been recruited to work at the Commission.

Being on the reserve list does not guarantee that you will be recruited to a permanent official's position. These lists usually have a time-limit of one or two years.

Career path

The Commission's career system consists of a single pay scale with 16 grades. Within this pay scale, Assistants (AST) can occupy grades 1 - 11 while Administrators (AD) can occupy grades 5 - 16.

Open competitions are generally organised at specific grades between AD5 - 8 and AST1 - 4. As a newly recruited official you will be appointed to the grade set out in the notice of the competition you have passed.

Each grade has five 'seniority steps': you automatically advance through these steps according to your seniority in the Commission. You move up one step every two years until you are promoted to the next grade or until you reach the last step in the grade. The very top grade (AD 16) has just three seniority steps.

When you are first recruited you will normally be classified in the first step of the grade to which you have been appointed. However, your professional experience is taken into account if it goes beyond the minimum period required in the competition notice, and this may result in classification in the second step of the grade. For more details, see Article 32 of the Staff Regulations .

You will start at the Commission as a 'probationary' official. At the end of this 9-month period, a report on your performance will be drawn up. If you successfully complete the probationary period, you will be established as an official. Like all other officials, your performance will continue to be assessed regularly during the Commission's annual staff appraisal exercise (CDR), which has a direct influence on the progress of your career, including promotion to the next grade in Commission's salary scale.

We have a policy of life-long learning, and as part of the appraisal process, you will draw up a personal training map with your manager, which is tailored to your specific needs.

Officials who join the Commission in the 'assistants' category can pass to the 'administrators' category by following the 'certification procedure'. This allows selected staff who have demonstrated the potential to do 'administrator' tasks to follow a set of mandatory training modules and sit final exams. If they succeed, they are able to apply for 'administrator' posts.

Salary & other benefits

Below, you will find a summary of our main benefits. For precise details, you can consult our Staff Regulations.

Salary
Basic monthly Commission salaries range from around €2,300 per month for a newly recruited AST 1 official to around €16,000 per month for a top level AD 16 official with over 4 years of seniority.
Each grade is broken up into five seniority steps with corresponding salary increases. Basic salaries are adjusted annually in line with inflation and purchasing power in the EU countries. The complete salary table is available in the Staff Regulations (Article 66) [15 KB] .

The basic monthly salary is just the starting point. To know how much you will get, you then have to add the allowances you may be entitled to, minus social security contributions (pension, health and accident insurance) and other taxes (income tax and a special EU levy). You will find more details below.

Allowances
If you have left your home country to come and work for the European Commission, you are entitled to an expatriation allowance equivalent to 16% of your basic salary.

Some family-related allowances are available to Commission officials according to their family situation. These include a household allowance, a dependant child allowance, an educational allowance and a pre-school allowance. These allowances can help to cover the costs of looking after a family while working for an international organisation. For more information, see the Staff Regulations (Articles 62 to 71 and Annex VII ).

Pension
EU officials normally reach retirement age at 63, but it is possible to take early retirement with a reduced pension from the age of 55, or to work up until the age of 67. FAQ.

Pensions are paid as a percentage of the final basic salary. Officials accumulate 1.9% pension rights every year and are entitled to a maximum pension of 70% of their final basic salary. For more details, see the Staff Regulations (Articles 77 to 84 and Annex VIII ).

Staff can apply to transfer the pension rights they already have from a previous job or as a self-employed person. Similarly, you can also transfer the pension rights you gain while working at the European Commission into another pension fund. For more information, see the Staff Regulations (Articles 11 and 12 of Annex VIII ).

Whilst working, your contribution to the pension scheme will correspond to 10,25% of your basic salary.

Sickness insurance
As a European Commission official, you and your family are entitled to benefit from the Joint Sickness Insurance Scheme of the European Communities, which covers medical expenses at a reimbursement rate of 80% for most kinds of treatment (subject to maximum limits). You are also covered by accident insurance and insurance against occupational diseases.

The Joint Sickness Insurance Scheme is funded through a contribution of about 2% of the basic monthly salary from each Commission official.

You are also required to undergo a preventive medical check-up every year. For more details, see the Staff Regulations (Articles 72 to 76 ).

Taxes
As a European civil servant, your salary is not subject to national income tax. Instead, salaries paid by the Commission to its officials are directly subject to a Community tax which is paid directly back into the EU's budget. This tax is levied progressively at a rate of between 8% and 45% of the taxable portion of your salary. An additional special levy is in place until 2012 (see Article 66 of the Staff Regulations ).

Leave & absences
Commission officials are entitled to annual leave of 24 working days. On top of this entitlement, you may also be granted leave for time spent traveling between your home country and the place where you work. In addition to annual leave, there are rules for special leave for marriage, moving house, death of relatives or serious illnesses, births, etc. In exceptional circumstances, you may also apply for unpaid leave on personal grounds. You will find more information in the Staff Regulations (Articles 57 to 61 and Annex V ).

Reconciling professional & personal life
A range of measures are in place to help ensure that working for the Commission is conducive to a healthy professional, personal and family life. These measures focus on parental and compassionate leave, a solid infrastructure of childcare and schooling and modern working arrangements.

Many of these measures were introduced or improved when the new Staff Regulations came into effect in May 2004. In particular, mothers are entitled to 20 weeks maternity leave and fathers 10 days paternity leave on the normal salary, while 6 months parental leave per child is available on a basic monthly allowance.

For more information see the Staff Regulations (Articles 57 to 61 and Annexes IV bis and V ).

The Commission takes a holistic approach to all aspects of well-being at work: there are also many leisure, sports and cultural clubs open to Commission staff and their families, including athletics, dance, theatre, art and language exchange.