Today, Wednesday at 4 pm, the finance ministers of the EU member states will meet for a video conference. A political agreement on the reform of European debt rules is within reach, as German Finance Minister Christian Lindner and his French counterpart Bruno Le Maire made clear yesterday evening. The two had met in Paris for a working dinner to clear the final hurdles.
Host Le Maire emphasized that the new debt rules would create a credible pact that would ensure stability and provide scope for growth in the face of the enormous challenges posed by the green and digital transformation.
According to diplomats, only two major issues remain to be clarified by the ministers today. One is the speed at which countries should reach the safety margin for their new debt. Countries with a debt ratio of less than 90 percent of economic output could therefore run a deficit of up to two percent of GDP in normal times, while more indebted countries could run a deficit of half a percentage point less. The maximum deviations of countries from their specified net expenditure path without corrective steps being taken are also still open.
If the finance ministers reach a political agreement today, the Spanish Council Presidency wants to get straight down to business and have the EU ambassadors adopt the Council’s position on Thursday. This would be a political triumph for the government in Madrid and the Spanish Minister for Economic Affairs, Nadia Calviño, the future President of the European Investment Bank. Berlin and other governments, on the other hand, would like to take a little more time for the legal fine-tuning – especially as the final negotiations with the European Parliament are not due to begin until mid-January.
Have a great day!
Germany is massively underrepresented in the EU institutions. As the largest member state, Germany accounts for 18.6 percent of the EU population. In the three most staff-intensive institutions; Commission, Parliament and Council, the proportion of employees with a German passport is significantly lower. In the Commission, the proportion of Germans is 6.7 percent, in the Parliament 8.5 percent and in the Council 5.6 percent in non-management posts and 9.9 percent in management posts. This statement applies to all EU employees, whether civil servants, temporary staff or contract staff.
Alongside the Czech Republic, Denmark, Cyprus, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Poland, Germany is thus one of the countries with the lowest representation in the institutions. Other member states are also quantitatively better represented in the European External Action Service (EEAS).
Germany has been poorly represented in the institutions for years. According to the Federal Government’s report on Germany’s staff presence in international organizations, which also deals with the EU, “the downward spiral” in the EU has recently intensified from Germany’s perspective.
MEPs in the European Parliament now want to bring about changes: In a joint letter, the three German Vice-Presidents of the European Parliament, Rainer Wieland (CDU), Katarina Barley (SPD) and Nicola Beer (FDP), call for a selection procedure (concours) in which only candidates with German nationality can compete. The letter to the Secretary-General of Parliament, Alessandro Chiocchetti, is available to Table.Media.
The letter states this is necessary “to counter an increasing deterioration in the situation and to counteract a growing divide among German civil servants.” Last year, the Parliament’s Bureau, which includes Parliament President Roberta Metsola and the 14 Vice-Presidents, had already called for exclusive concours for applicants from Cyprus, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Austria. At the time, the “significant under-representation” of the respective nationals among parliamentary staff was also cited as a reason. To date, Secretary-General Chiocchetti has not complied with the Bureau’s decision or the German vice-president’s request.
However, behind closed doors, there is criticism of the demand for separate selection procedures for Germans. “A concours for Germans only means that the standards are not as high as usual and that competition is deliberately eliminated, which lowers the level,” warns a high-ranking official formerly involved in selection procedures.
According to two statistics that were the subject of deliberations in the Bureau of the European Parliament, Germany performs particularly poorly among officials in the Secretariat-General of the European Parliament. Only 321 of the 4,488 officials in the General Secretariat have a German passport. France, with a lower share of the EU population of 15.2 percent, has 432 officials. Italy (13.1 percent of the population) has 392 officials. The majority of employees in the Secretariat-General of the European Parliament are of Belgian nationality, namely 552. Belgium’s strong position, with only 2.6 percent of the EU population, can of course be explained by the fact that many Belgians are employed on-site for the maintenance and upkeep of the properties. As a rule, these are not high-paying jobs.
The under-representation of Germans is unlikely to change much in the future: Germany ranks 19th among the 27 Member States in terms of the ratio of the number of staff aged 40 that statistically come to one MEP.
The situation is similar in the other institutions: The Commission, the institution with the highest number of employees, had exactly 30,727 employees on the cut-off date of 24.10.2023. Of these, 2,025 were German. This corresponds to a share of Germans in the Commission of 6.7 percent. Belgium accounts for 2.6 percent of the EU’s population, but with 4,368 employees, it has the most Commission staff. This means around 14 percent of the Commission’s employees come from Belgium. Germany is slightly better off when it comes to Commission officials in the senior civil service. In this group, 1,350 officials have a German passport, ahead are only France with 1,467 officials and Italy with 1,720 officials.
In the European External Action Service (EEAS), 110 of the 1,069 civil servants are German. At 10.3 percent, Germany also has a lower representation here than the two smaller member states Italy (11 percent) and France (15 percent). Of the 388 diplomats seconded to the EEAS by the member states, 7.5 percent came from Germany. Germany is also underrepresented in the senior management of the EEAS. At the time of the survey, there was no German representative at first or second level. Only three out of ten Managing Directors in the EEAS are German. Of the 141 EU delegations outside the EU, 16 were led by Germans, 17 delegations each were led by Spaniards or Italians, France topped the list with 20 delegations.
The German government’s report cites the good labor market for academics in Germany as one of the reasons for the underrepresentation of Germans. German university graduates are far less attracted abroad than graduates from Italy and Romania, for example. On the other hand, reference is made to the long selection procedures at EPSO. This European Personnel Selection Office carries out the selection of applicants for all EU institutions centrally. This process can take up to two years. This makes EPSO significantly slower than selection procedures in large companies, for example.
The length of time is at odds with the life plans of many applicants. Germans also participate significantly less in EPSO procedures than applicants from other member states: Only 4.5 percent of applications received by EPSO are from Germany. Around four times as many applications from Germany would have to be received to match the German share of the population. However, Germans fare slightly better than other nationalities in the EPSO procedures: Their success rate is two percent, compared to an EU average of 1.5 percent.
Other reasons for the lower presence of Germans are mentioned behind closed doors. For example, pay in the EU institutions is no longer as attractive as it used to be. In Luxembourg, for example, the EU pays salaries below the Luxembourg minimum wage in the lower grades. Moreover, austerity measures have meant that the financial conditions at EU institutions are no longer attractive for university graduates with good and very good grades from Germany.
A high-ranking Commission official also points out that applicants from Germany are less mobile today than they used to be: “On average, applicants to the Commission are 33 years old, the age at which most of them have a partner.” The EU institutions need to become more attractive as employers, for example, by making an effort to place partners in jobs.
Do you still receive mail at Christmas – i.e. real paper postcards with Christmas motifs and good wishes for the festive season? If so, you can rejoice because most people now prefer to send an electronic message rather than going to the trouble and expense of doing so.
Of course, it’s a shame that writing real letters has gone out of fashion. After all, there are many examples of historically and literarily interesting correspondence that are hard to imagine being sent by text message or email. Think of Napoleon’s love messages to his Josephine or Goethe’s letters to Christiane Vulpius, which he initially forgot to number. Neither of them could ever be sure that their letters would reach the lady – until the reply arrived. There was also a certain thrill in that. Christmas mail does not belong in this category, but, of course, it is still a lot of fun.
Nowadays, waiting for mail can again take many days, like for Josephine or Christiane back then. But that’s another story. MEP Markus Ferber from the CSU is bothered by something completely different: that letter prices vary widely within the EU. This would create a considerable patchwork on the European postal market to the detriment of consumers.
Ferber analyzed the prices. According to the study, letter postage costs an average of €1.63 in Europe. However, the price range is enormous, extending from Denmark (€4.84), Italy (€3.50) and Portugal (€3.25) to countries such as Lithuania (€0.81) or Malta (€0.59), which are even below €1 for a standard European letter. Germany is in the middle range at €1.10.
From this observation, Ferber deduces that there is a considerable backlog in terms of harmonization. “We should put a stop to this kind of price discrimination,” says the MEP. The Commission should urgently take regulatory action here. “This issue must be addressed for European Christmas mail by 2024. Otherwise, it will soon become a race for the deepest pockets.”
Ferber has sent his request to Commissioner Thierry Breton by letter. And Breton replied. In addition to all the expected information, it also states in black and white how many letters are sent per citizen across the EU. This also varies greatly from member state to member state, ranging from 230 to four letters per year. And, unsurprisingly, the volume of letters has decreased the most in Denmark. However, we can assure Mr. Ferber that this is not due to high prices, but rather the opposite.
In fact, it is to be expected that postage prices will continue to rise because letter volumes will continue to fall. So the question is: what is the (Christmas) mail worth to us? In contrast to telephone boxes and fax machines, which we have also phased out, the question should certainly be assessed differently from a cultural and historical perspective. In any case, I hope that your letterbox is filled with warm Christmas greetings from all over the world! vis
Today, Wednesday at 4 pm, the finance ministers of the EU member states will meet for a video conference. A political agreement on the reform of European debt rules is within reach, as German Finance Minister Christian Lindner and his French counterpart Bruno Le Maire made clear yesterday evening. The two had met in Paris for a working dinner to clear the final hurdles.
Host Le Maire emphasized that the new debt rules would create a credible pact that would ensure stability and provide scope for growth in the face of the enormous challenges posed by the green and digital transformation.
According to diplomats, only two major issues remain to be clarified by the ministers today. One is the speed at which countries should reach the safety margin for their new debt. Countries with a debt ratio of less than 90 percent of economic output could therefore run a deficit of up to two percent of GDP in normal times, while more indebted countries could run a deficit of half a percentage point less. The maximum deviations of countries from their specified net expenditure path without corrective steps being taken are also still open.
If the finance ministers reach a political agreement today, the Spanish Council Presidency wants to get straight down to business and have the EU ambassadors adopt the Council’s position on Thursday. This would be a political triumph for the government in Madrid and the Spanish Minister for Economic Affairs, Nadia Calviño, the future President of the European Investment Bank. Berlin and other governments, on the other hand, would like to take a little more time for the legal fine-tuning – especially as the final negotiations with the European Parliament are not due to begin until mid-January.
Have a great day!
Germany is massively underrepresented in the EU institutions. As the largest member state, Germany accounts for 18.6 percent of the EU population. In the three most staff-intensive institutions; Commission, Parliament and Council, the proportion of employees with a German passport is significantly lower. In the Commission, the proportion of Germans is 6.7 percent, in the Parliament 8.5 percent and in the Council 5.6 percent in non-management posts and 9.9 percent in management posts. This statement applies to all EU employees, whether civil servants, temporary staff or contract staff.
Alongside the Czech Republic, Denmark, Cyprus, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Poland, Germany is thus one of the countries with the lowest representation in the institutions. Other member states are also quantitatively better represented in the European External Action Service (EEAS).
Germany has been poorly represented in the institutions for years. According to the Federal Government’s report on Germany’s staff presence in international organizations, which also deals with the EU, “the downward spiral” in the EU has recently intensified from Germany’s perspective.
MEPs in the European Parliament now want to bring about changes: In a joint letter, the three German Vice-Presidents of the European Parliament, Rainer Wieland (CDU), Katarina Barley (SPD) and Nicola Beer (FDP), call for a selection procedure (concours) in which only candidates with German nationality can compete. The letter to the Secretary-General of Parliament, Alessandro Chiocchetti, is available to Table.Media.
The letter states this is necessary “to counter an increasing deterioration in the situation and to counteract a growing divide among German civil servants.” Last year, the Parliament’s Bureau, which includes Parliament President Roberta Metsola and the 14 Vice-Presidents, had already called for exclusive concours for applicants from Cyprus, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Austria. At the time, the “significant under-representation” of the respective nationals among parliamentary staff was also cited as a reason. To date, Secretary-General Chiocchetti has not complied with the Bureau’s decision or the German vice-president’s request.
However, behind closed doors, there is criticism of the demand for separate selection procedures for Germans. “A concours for Germans only means that the standards are not as high as usual and that competition is deliberately eliminated, which lowers the level,” warns a high-ranking official formerly involved in selection procedures.
According to two statistics that were the subject of deliberations in the Bureau of the European Parliament, Germany performs particularly poorly among officials in the Secretariat-General of the European Parliament. Only 321 of the 4,488 officials in the General Secretariat have a German passport. France, with a lower share of the EU population of 15.2 percent, has 432 officials. Italy (13.1 percent of the population) has 392 officials. The majority of employees in the Secretariat-General of the European Parliament are of Belgian nationality, namely 552. Belgium’s strong position, with only 2.6 percent of the EU population, can of course be explained by the fact that many Belgians are employed on-site for the maintenance and upkeep of the properties. As a rule, these are not high-paying jobs.
The under-representation of Germans is unlikely to change much in the future: Germany ranks 19th among the 27 Member States in terms of the ratio of the number of staff aged 40 that statistically come to one MEP.
The situation is similar in the other institutions: The Commission, the institution with the highest number of employees, had exactly 30,727 employees on the cut-off date of 24.10.2023. Of these, 2,025 were German. This corresponds to a share of Germans in the Commission of 6.7 percent. Belgium accounts for 2.6 percent of the EU’s population, but with 4,368 employees, it has the most Commission staff. This means around 14 percent of the Commission’s employees come from Belgium. Germany is slightly better off when it comes to Commission officials in the senior civil service. In this group, 1,350 officials have a German passport, ahead are only France with 1,467 officials and Italy with 1,720 officials.
In the European External Action Service (EEAS), 110 of the 1,069 civil servants are German. At 10.3 percent, Germany also has a lower representation here than the two smaller member states Italy (11 percent) and France (15 percent). Of the 388 diplomats seconded to the EEAS by the member states, 7.5 percent came from Germany. Germany is also underrepresented in the senior management of the EEAS. At the time of the survey, there was no German representative at first or second level. Only three out of ten Managing Directors in the EEAS are German. Of the 141 EU delegations outside the EU, 16 were led by Germans, 17 delegations each were led by Spaniards or Italians, France topped the list with 20 delegations.
The German government’s report cites the good labor market for academics in Germany as one of the reasons for the underrepresentation of Germans. German university graduates are far less attracted abroad than graduates from Italy and Romania, for example. On the other hand, reference is made to the long selection procedures at EPSO. This European Personnel Selection Office carries out the selection of applicants for all EU institutions centrally. This process can take up to two years. This makes EPSO significantly slower than selection procedures in large companies, for example.
The length of time is at odds with the life plans of many applicants. Germans also participate significantly less in EPSO procedures than applicants from other member states: Only 4.5 percent of applications received by EPSO are from Germany. Around four times as many applications from Germany would have to be received to match the German share of the population. However, Germans fare slightly better than other nationalities in the EPSO procedures: Their success rate is two percent, compared to an EU average of 1.5 percent.
Other reasons for the lower presence of Germans are mentioned behind closed doors. For example, pay in the EU institutions is no longer as attractive as it used to be. In Luxembourg, for example, the EU pays salaries below the Luxembourg minimum wage in the lower grades. Moreover, austerity measures have meant that the financial conditions at EU institutions are no longer attractive for university graduates with good and very good grades from Germany.
A high-ranking Commission official also points out that applicants from Germany are less mobile today than they used to be: “On average, applicants to the Commission are 33 years old, the age at which most of them have a partner.” The EU institutions need to become more attractive as employers, for example, by making an effort to place partners in jobs.
Do you still receive mail at Christmas – i.e. real paper postcards with Christmas motifs and good wishes for the festive season? If so, you can rejoice because most people now prefer to send an electronic message rather than going to the trouble and expense of doing so.
Of course, it’s a shame that writing real letters has gone out of fashion. After all, there are many examples of historically and literarily interesting correspondence that are hard to imagine being sent by text message or email. Think of Napoleon’s love messages to his Josephine or Goethe’s letters to Christiane Vulpius, which he initially forgot to number. Neither of them could ever be sure that their letters would reach the lady – until the reply arrived. There was also a certain thrill in that. Christmas mail does not belong in this category, but, of course, it is still a lot of fun.
Nowadays, waiting for mail can again take many days, like for Josephine or Christiane back then. But that’s another story. MEP Markus Ferber from the CSU is bothered by something completely different: that letter prices vary widely within the EU. This would create a considerable patchwork on the European postal market to the detriment of consumers.
Ferber analyzed the prices. According to the study, letter postage costs an average of €1.63 in Europe. However, the price range is enormous, extending from Denmark (€4.84), Italy (€3.50) and Portugal (€3.25) to countries such as Lithuania (€0.81) or Malta (€0.59), which are even below €1 for a standard European letter. Germany is in the middle range at €1.10.
From this observation, Ferber deduces that there is a considerable backlog in terms of harmonization. “We should put a stop to this kind of price discrimination,” says the MEP. The Commission should urgently take regulatory action here. “This issue must be addressed for European Christmas mail by 2024. Otherwise, it will soon become a race for the deepest pockets.”
Ferber has sent his request to Commissioner Thierry Breton by letter. And Breton replied. In addition to all the expected information, it also states in black and white how many letters are sent per citizen across the EU. This also varies greatly from member state to member state, ranging from 230 to four letters per year. And, unsurprisingly, the volume of letters has decreased the most in Denmark. However, we can assure Mr. Ferber that this is not due to high prices, but rather the opposite.
In fact, it is to be expected that postage prices will continue to rise because letter volumes will continue to fall. So the question is: what is the (Christmas) mail worth to us? In contrast to telephone boxes and fax machines, which we have also phased out, the question should certainly be assessed differently from a cultural and historical perspective. In any case, I hope that your letterbox is filled with warm Christmas greetings from all over the world! vis
