European Commission - Organisation

Organisation

The Commission is primarily based in Brussels, with the President's office and the Commission's meeting room on the 13th floor of the Berlaymont building. The Commission also operates out of numerous other buildings in Brussels and Luxembourg. When the Parliament is meeting in Strasbourg, the Commissioners also meet there in the Winston Churchill building to attend the Parliament's debates. The Commission is divided into departments known as Directorates-General (DGs) that can be likened to departments or ministries. Each covers a specific policy area such as Agriculture or Justice and citizens' rights or internal services such as Human Resources and Translation and is headed by Director-General who is responsible to a Commissioner. A Commissioner's portfolio can be supported by numerous DGs, they prepare proposals for them and if approved by a majority of Commissioners it goes forward to Parliament and Council for consideration. There has been criticism from a number of people that the highly fragmented DG structure wastes a considerable amount of time in turf wars as the different departments and Commissioners compete with each other. Furthermore the DGs can exercise considerable control over a Commissioner with the Commissioner having little time to learn to assert control over their staff.

According to figures published by the Commission, 23,803 persons were employed by the Commission as officials and temporary agents in September 2012. In addition to these, 9230 "external staff" (e.g. Contractual agents, detached national experts, young experts, trainees etc.) were employed. The single largest DG is the Directorate-General for Translation, with a 2309-strong staff, while the largest group by nationality is Belgian (18.7%), probably due to a majority (17,664) of staff being based in the country. The Commission's civil service is headed by a Secretary General, currently Catherine Day.