New development: Eloquent silence—civil service career development in the EU financial assistance programmes conditionality

ABSTRACT

This article examines how civil servants’ career development was treated in the loan-driven EU reform recommendations for Greece, Portugal, Cyprus, Ireland and Spain in the aftermath of the 2007–2008 global financial crisis. Neither the European Commission (EC), nor the ‘Troika’, made any proposals for reforming the career development of those countries’ civil services. This omission is dysfunctional given the otherwise ambitious reform agenda the EC required from these countries in order to grant them financial support.

IMPACT

The policy conditionality that the European Commission (EC) attached to the financial assistance programmes given to Greece, Portugal, Cyprus, Ireland and Spain in 2007–2008 made virtually no mention of civil service career reform. Regarding structural reforms of the countries’ public administrations, the priorities were to set up independent fiscal councils, pass budgetary and fiscal discipline laws, and/or improve fiscal reporting and the financial administration. In some instances, EU documents openly declared that the public sector was responsible for the crisis and that it was important to avoid growth in public sector employee numbers. In sum, the vision of the public sector that emerges from these official policy documents is very much that of a risk factor. More attention needs to be put on reforming and modernizing civil servants’ careers for the reform recommendations to be successful.

KEYWORDS:

• Career development
• civil service
• conditionality
• Cyprus
• Greece
• Ireland
• Portugal
• Spain

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).