Coming
(maybe) Brexodus of Eurocrats
Thousands
of the Queen’s subjects in Brussels face uncertain professional
futures.
By MAÏA DE LA BAUME
3/1/16, 5:30 AM CET Updated 3/1/16, 6:08 AM CET
Back home in
Britain, they are known only as footsoldiers in a faceless army of
Eurocrats. In Brussels, EU officials like Jonathan Faull, Stephen
Quest and Lowri Evans are senior members of an influential community
that faces an uncertain or even unemployed future if the U.K. decides
to leave the EU.
They and hundreds of
other British civil servants in the European institutions must now
endure a four-month waiting game ahead of the U.K.’s decisive In or
Out referendum on its EU membership. Only after that vote will many
of these bureaucrats, political aides, administrators and other
officials get an idea of whether they have a professional future in
Brussels, or if their jobs will even exist at all.
Swirling around the
whole issue are several key questions that would arise after the one
on Britain’s EU membership is answered on June 23: If there is
going to be a U.K.-EU divorce, when will it be final? Who gets to
keep their jobs and who doesn’t? And even for people who do get to
stay, just how valuable is a job-for-life in what will suddenly be a
“foreign” civil service?
“We wonder what
will happen if Britain says ‘No,'” said one Briton working in the
European Parliament, who like others declined to speak on the record
about what might happen to staff after the referendum. “Will we
need a work permit to work in the EU? Won’t they need native
speakers at the Commission, where English is the main language? It is
a very unusual situation for all of us.”
Hundreds of
mid-level civil servants in EU institutions face a future in
professional limbo.
Figuring out the
answers would be part of a Brexit process scenario that could take as
long as 10 years, according to a U.K. government report released this
week.
Making the situation
even more uncertain is the fact that the main EU institutions — the
Commission, the Council and the Parliament — are making no public
effort to plan for a Brexit, leaving many British employees to wonder
about their fate.
The European
Commission, which employs 1,000 U.K. nationals across its various
departments, according to official figures, has said publicly it has
no “Plan B” if an Out vote wins on June 23. “We are staying
away from this discussion,” a Commission official said.
That has left
British EU staffers scrambling to figure out what contingency plans
they might have to make if and when their country is no longer part
of the European Union.
Staff union
representatives said many top EU officials in the institutions would
be almost certain to lose their high-profile positions once the U.K.
left the Union — as there would be little support for having Brits
running key departments. And, clearly, Britain would lose its 73
members of the European Parliament and its seat on the European
Commission, currently held by Jonathan Hill.
The future is less
clear for hundreds of mid-level civil servants who have passed EU
exams and signed permanent contracts for jobs in the Eurocracy. While
they might be able to keep their jobs, their prospects for future
advancement would be dimmed, likely leading to a Brexodus of
experienced U.K. professionals from the EU scene.`
“Those who would
certainly pay the price of a Brexit are the director-generals and
other top management positions,” said Pierre Bacri, president of
the European Civil Service Federation, a union that represents staff
in the EU institutions. “For people who expect to hold positions
with responsibilities, career prospects will be more limited.”
Bacri said he
believed that, in the case of Brexit, the U.K. and the EU would find
an agreement with “reasonable solutions” to deal with British
permanent staff in the institutions, including arrangements for their
pensions.
Uncertain timetable
What few answers
there are about the Brexit process can be found in Article 50 of the
EU treaty, which spells out actions leaders need to take but doesn’t
say much about their impact on the institutions.
According to the
article, if the U.K. decides to leave the Union it would need to
notify other EU member countries in the European Council and then
negotiate an agreement with them on the terms of its withdrawal.
During the
negotiation phase, British officials would in principle continue to
fully exercise their rights within the EU institutions. But they
would lose their political champions in the EU, as neither the
British prime minister nor British officials in the Council would be
allowed to participate in deliberations and decisions affecting their
country.
There are currently
1,000 Brits holding positions in the European Commission | Ben
Pruchnie/Getty
A thousand British
citizens work at the European Commission | Ben Pruchnie/Getty
EU staff unions are
mobilizing to try to provide answers to concerned staffers. One of
them, the Association of Independent Officials, held a closed-door
conference on February 26 for its members entitled “Brexit:
potential implications for British colleagues at EU institutions,”
including their “status” within the institutions, their salaries,
pensions rights, and their residence rights or “free movement.”
An email sent by
organizers said the conference was held to explore the “worrying
situation” facing hundreds of British officials and contract agents
in the EU institutions. A representative of the union declined to
provide any further details about the discussion.
Where the Brits are
Even though it is
the third most populous EU nation, Britain does not have a
commensurate number of employees working in the Commission. The 1,000
British nationals who hold permanent Commission positions put it
slightly ahead of Greece, with 921 officials, and behind Poland, with
1,161, in the rankings.
The sheer numbers
don’t tell the whole story. While many of those Britons are working
in the Commission’s in-house translation service, and in its
scientific research department — not considered the most important
sections — U.K. nationals hold several of the highest-profile jobs.
British influence at
EU level may be most strongly represented in the diplomatic corps.
Of the 34
directors-general plus their deputies in the Commission, six are
British citizens. Those posts include the department in charge of
financial stability, financial services and Capital Markets Union,
which sets policies important to Britain’s banking sector and the
City of London.
They also include
longtime official Faull, who has held top posts in the Commission’s
justice, financial stability and competition departments and who now
runs its special task force on the U.K. referendum; Quest, the
current director general of Taxation and Customs Union; and Evans,
who heads the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries department. Another
senior British Commission official, Robert Madelin, holds a senior
special adviser post. All have worked for the Commission for more
than 20 years.
“The EU will lose
a good caliber of people in the institutions,” said James Stevens,
a British lobbyist at FleishmanHillard and the chair of the EU
committee at the British Chamber of Commerce in Brussels. “There is
a strong British imprint on energy, digital single market, trade
policy. People in the U.K. don’t recognize that their country is
very influential in Brussels.”
Political muscle in
Brussels
British influence at
EU level may be most strongly represented in the diplomatic corps. In
addition to officials recruited from the U.K. civil service and the
U.K.’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office in jobs directly related to
the EU, more than 130 U.K. nationals work for the European External
Action Service, the EU’s diplomatic arm. That includes 26 who hold
management positions.
“With its vast
diplomatic network and its status as permanent member of the U.N.
Security Council, the United Kingdom is one of the influential
intermediaries of the European positions in the world,” one French
official said. “That said, we can anticipate that a British exit
from the EU would penalize London more than its European partners.”
The Parliament
official said the impact of a British exit on the assembly’s staff
had not been explored.
Job losses would be
felt more quickly at the European Parliament. The 73 British MEPs —
the third largest delegation in the assembly — would presumably be
out of a job, along with their British assistants, at the end of
their current terms if not before.
“If a British MEP
leaves, it means his assistants and other British officials from the
group will certainly have to leave,” said a European Parliament
official. “But I don’t see why a British MEP would leave before
the end of his mandate.”
Less clear is what
would happen to an additional 289 British people working for the
Parliament’s administration. Like Commission employees, many are on
permanent contracts that would be protected even though they would no
longer be EU citizens.
The Parliament
official said the impact of a British exit on the assembly’s staff
had not been explored, but that it was clear some U.K. citizens
working for it would get to keep their jobs.
“Once you are a
civil servant in the EU, you remain a civil servant of the EU,” the
official said. “You have passed an exam, and signed a long-term
contract. There aren’t any rules which tell you that if you lose
the nationality required by an institution, you should go home.”
Job prospects
The situation
affects not only the status of Brits as employees of EU institutions,
but also potentially their employability in general on the Brussels
job market. One British assistant in the European Parliament said she
was looking into how to obtain Belgian citizenship — as have many
Britons working in Brussels since the Brexit debate began.
An Out vote would
also affect those who gravitate around the EU institutions, including
the 9,200 organizations that engage in lobbying activity in Brussels.
According to the EU Transparency Register, more than 1,0oo of them,
including NGOs, consulting firms, business federations, companies and
unions, are registered in the United Kingdom, and more than 100
organizations based in the U.K. have an office in Brussels.
If the U.K. votes to
leave the EU, the decoupling process will take years
There is a feeling
among many British lobbyists that even if they won’t lose their
jobs, the absence of Britain in Brussels will have an impact on their
business.
“We fear that not
being at the table will be bad for Britain and bad for the EU,”
said Stevens. “But for British nationals in Brussels, whether we
leave or not, there will be an increasing demand for our skills, our
ability to understand and translate between the U.K. and the EU.”
While the Commission
insists it is “staying away” from the Brexit discussion and even
Faull himself says he won’t address it — “We don’t speculate
on the outcome of the referendum,” he told POLITICO — the British
government says it will protect the interests of British officials
who fear for their jobs in the institutions.
“The government is
committed to producing clear information on the outcome of
renegotiation, the rights and obligations in EU law, an assessment of
alternatives to membership and publishing the process for leaving,”
a U.K government spokesperson said.
It’s clear that if
the U.K. votes to leave the EU, the decoupling process will take
years — giving Brits in Brussels a long transition time in which to
deal with the professional fallout. But the uncertainty surrounding
the whole question doesn’t make that any easier for EU staffers
waiting to know what their future holds.
“For me, it would
be very serious,” said a British parliamentary assistant. “My
husband is British. I settled here after school, and my life is
here.”
Authors:
Maïa de La Baume
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