EPSO: Italian applicant boom puts EU hiring balance to the test

The European Union's 2026 EPSO competition attracted 174.727 candidates competing for 1.490 available reserve list spots. But 79.343, almost half of them, are Italian. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT This creates a problem for EU institutions, which face chronic representation imbalances as countries like Germany and France fail to reach the desired staffing levels. In 2025, the Commission introduced new hiring guidelines for teams to prioritise candidates from a list of 15 'underrepresented' countries. These rules apply to applicants who already passed the EPSO exam, at the interview stage. This raises the possibility that Italians could occupy a substantial share of the 1.490 reserve-list places, complicating efforts to improve geographical representation. Olivier Salles, Director of EPSO (European Personnel Selection Office), told Euronews that past competitions did show a link between nationalities and success. "Previous competitions suggest that the geographical distribution of successful candidates broadly follows the distribution of applicants," Salles said. "However, some variations can occur, especially if drop-out rates affect different groups differently." He still cautioned that "it is too early to predict the geographical spread of successful candidates in this competition." 15 'underrepresented' nations Italy's applicants far exceed Spain (13.789), Germany (11.699) and France (10.939). In fact, Italy alone has more applicants than those three countries combined. Countries like the Netherlands (2.729), Denmark (987) and Luxembourg (630) have attracted comparatively few candidates. This imbalance matters because the Commission is already struggling to attract staff from Northern and Western Europe. Germany currently sits at just 64% of its targeted staffing level, and France at 73%. The Commission's own legal framework, under Article 27 of EU Staff Regulations, defines as a "significant imbalance" any staff presence that falls below 80% of its rate (a target based on a country's European Parliament seats and population). The 15 countries that do not currently reach their staff rate are Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Austria, Denmark, Finland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Cyprus, Ireland, Luxembourg, Poland, Slovakia, Lithuania, and Latvia. Italy has around 1.848 administrators working in the Commission, compared with 1.571 from France, 1.370 from Germany and just 380 from the Netherlands. Denmark has only 191, while Sweden has 264. However, numbers alone don't determine whether a country is underrepresented, since larger countries are expected to contribute more staff. Germany, for example, has the EU's largest population but relatively few Commission officials for its size. Belgium, meanwhile, is heavily overrepresented, partly because Brussels hosts most of the Commission's workforce. The Commission is also concerned that an upcoming wave of retirements could worsen geographical imbalances. Some countries are expected to lose a big share of their existing officials, with Germany alone projected to lose around 16% of its current staff to retirement. Without enough new recruits from these countries, their representation could fall further. The geographical imbalance action plan To fix this, the Commission developed Joint Action Plans with the 15 member states in 2023, followed by stronger recruitment rules adopted on 6 November 2025. The plan focuses particularly on younger and early-career officials, in grades AD5 to AD8, who form the future pool of senior EU administrators. The first measures included recruitment campaigns, university outreach and exam preparation support. But a 2024 review found that these efforts hadn't achieved much. So, in 2025, the Commission introduced stricter hiring rules that require hiring managers to invite at least one qualified candidate from an underrepresented country to final interviews and allow them to favour these candidates when qualifications are equal. The rules also introduce recruitment targets, although the Commission insists that jobs cannot be reserved for specific nationalities and that all candidates must meet the same standards. This is where the 2026 EPSO competition creates a potential problem. Italy alone accounts for 45.4% of applicants, despite not being among the 15 underrepresented countries. If Italian candidates pass the examinations in similarly large proportions, they could dominate the reserve list from which EU institutions recruit. Meanwhile, countries like Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands have considerably smaller applicant pools. Even with preferential interview measures, the Commission cannot recruit candidates from these countries unless enough make it through the examinations. Spain has already challenged the legality of these measures, arguing that they risk discriminating against candidates from other member states, and France and Belgium supported its case. Crucially, the rules do not change how candidates are scored in the EPSO examination, which remains merit-based. They apply later, as institutions select candidates from the reserve list for interviews. The Commission also maintains that it reserves no jobs for specific nationalities. Salles added that "available data does not establish significant differences in pass rates between nationalities". The 2026 EPSO exam Several factors explain the unprecedented number of applications for the 2026 EPSO competition, including the 7-year-gap since the last generalist competition, the introduction of remote testing, and broader eligibility criteria. "Since 2019, EPSO has seen a steady increase in applications across all competitions, so the high number of applicants for the AD5 competition is part of a broader trend," Salles said. He pointed to greater promotion of EU careers, cooperation with member states, testing in all 24 official EU languages and the competition's accessibility to graduates from any academic discipline. "Additionally, we have noted the viral spread of messages about the competition in some Member States, which certainly contributed to the competition’s unprecedented visibility," he added. The traditional assessment centre has been removed, replaced by online reasoning tests, EU knowledge questions, digital skills assessments and a written essay. Testing has also been divided into two stages, with reasoning tests scheduled for this week and the remaining assessments taking place in 2027. "The decision to organise the tests in two parts was taken to better manage the unprecedented scale of the competition," Salles explained. EPSO has conducted repeated stress tests with its testing provider, expanded its help desk capacity and upgraded certain platform functions to prepare for the unprecedented number of candidates. "Although technical issues cannot be ruled out, every effort is being made to minimise potential disruptions," Salles acknowledged. Previous generalist competitions drew between 21.000 and 51.000 applicants, with numbers falling to around 22.000 in both 2018 and 2019. But this year's total is almost eight times higher than in 2019, with several years' worth of potential candidates competing at once. The applicant pool also extends beyond people already working in Brussels. According to EPSO, more than 90% of candidates are not currently employed by EU institutions. Why do EU careers appeal more to some nationalities than others? Differences in salaries, job security, and employment prospects mostly explain this, particularly in Southern European countries where graduates face more challenging labour-market conditions. "Interest in EU careers may also be influenced by broader socio-economic factors, such as employment opportunities, labour-market conditions and the attractiveness of public-sector careers in different Member States," Salles told Euronews. Salary plays a major role. According to Eurostat data, annual net earnings across the EU differ widely. In Luxembourg, net income reached €36,489.56 in 2025, followed by Ireland at €32,052.35 and the Netherlands at €25,750.34. Czechia (€13,107.24) and Estonia (€12,950.21) recorded the lowest amounts. In some EU countries, real wages have risen only slightly, stagnated, or even fallen in recent decades, while inflation has continued to rise and reduced citizens’ purchasing power. In Spain, wages decreased by 2% between the first quarter of 2021 and the first quarter of 2026. In Czechia, they fell by 5.8%, and in Italy by as much as 6.1%, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found. Labour market conditions are the second reason. High unemployment and poor career prospects push people, especially the educated, to apply for higher-paid positions in EU institutions. Spain and Greece, for example, have unemployment rates of 10.3% and 8.1%, respectively, as of May 2026, compared to 3.8% in Germany and 3.9 in the Netherlands. Beyond pushing up overrepresentation in EU institutions, these issues fuel the so-called "brain drain" phenomenon. The EU Commission says 46 regions are already in the “talent development trap”, meaning they can’t offset the loss of highly educated working-age residents amid depopulation and ageing. These include nearly all of Bulgaria and Romania, Sicily, and parts of Portugal. Another 36 regions, nearly 30% of the EU population, are at risk.