The impact of the accession of Bulgaria and Romania on the human resources of the Commission

The purpose of this communication is to substantiate the Commissions claim for additional human resources by assessing departments needs according to the impact of the accession of these two new Member States on the Comissions activities. It outlines the general orientations and impact of enlargement on human resources by groups of policy areas and by job profile. It will be a key component in future budgetary proposals and in the design of the recruitment strategy. It does however not cover the recruitment targets of nationals from the new Member States, which is a different issue to be addressed in due course.

This assessment extends to Bulgaria and Romania (EU-2) the communication presented in 2002 for the ten Member States that joined the Union in May 2004 (EU-10). Its nature and timing make the EU-2 enlargement very similar to the last one. Given the obvious similarities, this analysis was carried out using the same methodology as in 2002, but also taking into account the lessons learnt from the EU-10 accession as it occurred in actual fact in 2004. This communication therefore confirms and updates the medium-term estimates of human-resource needs made in 2002, as requested by the European Parliament in its resolution on the Annual Policy Strategy for 2006.