LETTER FROM BRUSSELS

Brussels, a renowned 65-year-old European institution, desperately seeks Nordic, German, Dutch or Luxembourg citizens for a long and serious relationship. The European Commission has not yet placed this kind of small ad, but an increasing number of northern European states fear that they no longer recognize themselves in the institutions of the European capital. They are worried about an imbalance in the representativeness of their citizens, out of the 32,000 people making up the European executive.

It's an objective enshrined in the European Union (EU) Treaty and a necessity for ensuring the legitimacy of the European institutions. "Otherwise," maintained one European diplomat, "how could the citizens of my country recognize themselves in decisions taken in Brussels?" There's also an influence element: whoever has more of their fellow citizens in place can more easily influence and weigh in on the conduct of the Union's policies.

"For several years now, the proportion of Swedes working in the EU has been falling," said Matilda Rotkirch, responsible for recruiting her fellow countrymen in EU institutions. "Despite government measures, the trend has not been reversed. Only two Swedes took the last major EU entrance exam, while there's now a shortfall of at least 60 already and another 60 are due to retire soon."

The same is true of Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic. All in all, more than half of all countries are now under-represented in European institutions and are moving further and further away from an optimal level of representativeness, calculated by the Commission in relation to the demographic weight of these European countries.

While these member states are still well represented at director and director general level, they are less and less so in the early levels of EU administration, leading to these key positions over the next 20 years. Where, for example, 3.1% of the administrative workforce should be of Czech origin, there were only 2% in June 2022. By contrast, the Commission has 12.9% Italians, whereas there should ideally be 11.2%. The French accounted for 10.9% of the workforce in 2022, against a target of 11.8%.

So, whose fault is it? There are many reasons why certain citizens are losing interest in the European civil service. "There's a question of the appeal of European affairs," confided one diplomat. "In some countries, Europe is being accused of all sorts of evils, so it's not easy to motivate young people to join." This was confirmed by Magali Gravier, a researcher at Copenhagen Business School: "The crystallization of nationalism and identitarian withdrawal are feeding euroscepticism, which affects attractiveness and the European institutional project."

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