The “European” Civil Service: one continent and two approaches

The creation of the European Coal and Steel Community came with the introduction of a new concept of International Civil Servant. In delineating the structure and the nature of this new Civil Service, the Members States and the Presidents of the 4 Institutions decided to mark a stark break from the previous experiences of International Secretariats and bureaucracies and instead opted for a system more similar to European, national systems. In decades following, thanks to the influence of the European Communities and their activities, the term “European Civil Service” became eponymous with permanent employment with the present-day European Union and, by virtue of its unique features, even started to be considered as a separate legal subject altogether. In the European continent there are however a number of sometimes older organizations, that share (at least partially) membership, values, vision goals with the European Union: they are the so-called Co-ordinated Organizations. They are expression of a more traditional concept of International Civil Service, and despite their specificities and European dimension, they are fully part of the global system of international administrative law. The main differences in the two aforementioned models of Civil Service have long been identified by the scholarship in three main areas: the nature of the link between the Organization and the Civil Servant, the open or closed nature of the Civil Service and the existence of a career path rather than a system of posts. The aim of this dissertation is to answer, with regard primarily to the permanent officials of the EU and of the Council of Europe (one of the Coordinated Organizations), to the following two questions. First, to see what are the actual characteristics and what was the evolution of the two civil services, highlighting the features making them unique and different. Second, to see how these systems coped in two similar but different cases. On of these cases will be about the nationality of civil servants and the departure of a Member State from the organization; another one on the involvement of Trade Unions and Staff Associations in certain post COVID-19 arrangements regarding the working place. The final result of this research will highlight that the two systems converged under certain aspects, but cannot still be considered as forming a single “European Civil Service” model. Moreover, it will be argued that a unitary system is, at this point, not even desirable; it will be proposed what could be actually done to improve the European character of both systems.