Career advice for people active in green parties and social movements to find their way to Brussels and into the EU institutions

Interested in working for a greener European policy?

If more greens work in and around EU institutions European policy will become greener. By providing targeted information about how to make a career in the European Institutions (and in NGOs dealing with European policy making) we want to help young European greens and others active in social movements to find their way to post where they can contribute to shaping a greener European policy.

Introduction

You are a member of a green party or you are active in the social or the environmental movement? You are interested in European politics or curious to learn about it?

You could imagine working for a greener European policy in one of the European institutions or in a Brussels-based NGO?

We, the Brussels group of Bündnis 90/Die Grünen (the German green party), find it important that more green-minded people work in the influential European institutions and related organisations at the European policy stage. Many EU member states have programmes that help their nationals find their way through the complicated recruitment procedure for the EU institutions, reasoning that this strengthens the position of the country in EU policy making.

We want to ensure that interested people from Green parties and social movements also have access to the know-how and the advice necessary to make their way into European policy making. The Brussels group of the German Greens can support with the help of its extensive network in the EU institutions and Brussels based stakeholder organisations.

So if you are interested in working in the field of EU policy making, send an e-mail with a brief description of your background (your political activities and political areas of interest, your education, your professional experience) and your interest with regard to the EU to Sven Dammann (sven.dammann@googlemail.com).

Sven will then send you more detailed EU carrier information. Once you have studied this material carefully, you can get back to him for specific individual advice. If you have further questions, we will try to help you; also drawing on the support of the green network in Brussels.

About Sven: Sven has gone through several selection procedures for EU institutions himself (both for a traineeship at the European Commission, for a temporary agent post and for posts as a permanent EU official) and worked in different EU-bodies (the European Commission, the European Environment Agency and the European Economic and Social Committee).

Background of our initiative

Trade policy, agricultural policy, environmental policy, energy policy, social policy, international treaties and agreements – the directions for many national policies are determined in Brussels. Though the formal decision-power is with the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers, the EU officials in charge of preparing the policy documents and surveying their implementation as well as the NGOs and lobby-organisation that raise their voices during the policy making process have a considerable influence on agenda-setting and content. As greens working in EU institutions and NGO’s in Brussels we witness that the wish to pursue a career with a European dimension attracts many ambitious and talented brains. Often we are informally approached to give career advice to those not yet familiar with the how, where and who in the “capital of Europe”. Rather than arbitrarily giving such advice to whoever asks, we decided that we would much rather provide assistance to those that share our values, hoping we can render European politics a bit greener in the long term if more greens make it to Brussels.

This initiative is a first humble attempt to follow a pro-active approach and to reach out to potential candidates by:

1. raising awareness about these career options amongst greens;
2. providing links to relevant information made available by other institutions; and
3. giving personal advice if necessary.

As we have made our way to Brussels ourselves and have been around for a while we feel that we can provide much relevant information ourselves or are likely to know someone who knows.

We look forward to hearing from you!