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The European Civil Service is the civil service serving the institutions of the European Union, of
which the largest employer is the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union. It
is the permanent bureaucracy that implements the decisions of the Union's government.
Civil servants are recruited directly into the institutions after being selected by competitions set by
the official selection office. They are allocated to departments, known as Directorates-General (DGs),
each covering one or more related policy areas.
Directorates-General. The Commission is divided into departments known as DirectoratesGeneral (DGs or the services), each headed by a director-general, and various other services. Each covers
a specific policy area or service such as External Relations or Translation and is under the responsibility
of a European Commissioner. DGs prepare proposals for their Commissioners which can then be put
forward for voting in the college of Commissioners.
Whilst the Commission's DGs cover similar policy areas to the ministries in national governments,
European Civil Servants have not necessarily been trained, or worked, in a national civil service before
employment in the EU. On entry, they do not therefore share a common administrative culture.
The Directorates-General are divided into four groups: Policy DGs, External relations DGs, General
Service DGs and Internal Service DGs.
Hierarchy. During the 1980s, the Commission was primarily dominated by French, German and
Italian cultural influences, including a strictly hierarchical organisation. Commissioners and DirectorsGeneral were referred to by their title (in French) with greater prestige for those of higher ranks. As one
former servant, Derk Jan Eppink has put it, even after new servants had passed the tough entrance
exams: «Those at the top counted for everything. Those at the bottom counted for nothing.» The chef de
cabinet of President Jacques Delors, Pascal Lamy, was particularly notable for his immense influence
over other civil servants. He was seen as ruling Delors's office with a «rod of iron», with no-one able to
bypass or manipulate him and those who tried being «banished to one of the less pleasant European
postings».
However, since the enlargement of the EU, and therefore the arrival of staff from the many newer
Member States, there has been a change in the culture of the civil service. New civil servants from
northern and eastern states brought in new influences while the Commission's focus has shifted more to
«participation» and «consultation». A more egalitarian culture took over with Commissioners no longer
having a «status equivalent to a sun God» and with this new populism, the first women were appointed to
the Commission in the 1990s and the service gained its first female secretary general in 2006 (Catherine
Day).