The European Commission wants an upgrade. Staff warn the overhaul is happening without them.
The EU executive is embarking on its first sweeping administrative overhaul in over two decades, a reform meant to boost efficiency, draw in top talent, and ready the institution for global challenges.
But what Brussels bills as modernisation has landed badly inside the institution. Employees accuse the Commission of a top-down process — characteristic of Ursula von der Leyen’s second presidency — which excludes them.
The choice of retired Commission veteran and septuagenarian Catherine Day to advise on the changes has only fuelled doubts over how transformative the effort will be.
“The people who keep this institution running every day — its staff — have been shut out,” TAO, a trade union representing Commission staff, wrote to Budget and Public Administration Commissioner Piotr Serafin in an 11 December open letter seen by Contexte.
The union brands the lack of employee input into the reform process “an unprecedented exclusion”, and questions whether it has become “a review about staff without staff?”
Around 3,000 Commission employees have so far signed a petition launched on 28 October denouncing the process, Contexte has learnt.
The Commission is pushing back, stating it “has built a highly inclusive process,” a spokesperson said.
The plan
Commissioner Serafin is in charge of modernising the mammoth European civil service — home to just under 33,000 employees.
The goal: better equip the EU executive to respond to today’s complex geopolitics, prepare for the 27-member bloc’s potential enlargement and improve internal collaboration. Stephen Quest, the Commission’s director-general of human resources, is leading the reform day-to-day.
A draft report laying out restructuring options is due before next summer. Von der Leyen and the College of Commissioners will receive a final report by the end of 2026, with implementation scheduled for early 2027.
The shake-up would align the Commission’s internal structure with the next EU long-term budget, the 2028-2034 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), which aims to “simplify” spending by cutting the number of funding categories from seven to four.
Plans to merge agricultural and regional cohesion funds into a single pot, for example, would have major implications for the Directorates-General for agriculture and regional policy, DG AGRI and DG REGIO, fuelling staff anxiety over a potential relocation.
“If you are obliged to move to a new DG, it’s stressful. It’s not voluntary,” one staffer told Contexte. “You can tell HR your preferences, but they don’t have to follow them.”
The ‘old guard’ vision
Von der Leyen tapped Irishwoman Day — who served as the EU executive’s secretary general for two terms under two Commission presidents — to lead an eight-member team of external experts, dubbed the ‘High-Level Reflection Group’. The Commission says members were selected for their public-sector backgrounds and experience of reform processes.
These include former Commission Director-General of legal services Luis Romero Requena and the OECD’s head of public sector innovation Marco Daglio.
Day’s appointment has raised eyebrows internally.
“A lot of people don’t like that this task force has been given to Catherine Day,” said one staffer who spoke to Contexte on condition of anonymity. “She led the last big reform, and many feel she represents the old guard rather than new thinking.”
Another staffer added: “We want young people, innovators, people thinking out of the box — why did we bring back someone from the past?”
These concerns are not limited to individual employees. An internal November email from the staff association ‘Generation 2004’, seen by Contexte, questions how the overhaul “can be a ‘new reflection’ when it starts with the same people who shaped the last ones?”
Day played a role in two previous overhauls of working conditions — the 2004 administrative restructure known as the ‘Kinnock reform’, which revised promotion rules and introduced new contract types; and the 2014 EU staff regulations review, which raised pension and retirement ages and increased the working week from 37.5 to 40 hours, among other changes.
Trade unions fiercely opposed both reforms.
A report by the European Court of Auditors, the EU’s financial watchdog, found that the 2014 reform saved around €4.2 billion in staff costs, but also led to a decline in job satisfaction, an increased workload for some employees and a rise in staff sick days.
The Commission is defending Day.
The Irishwoman’s work inside and outside the Commission “equips her with a unique perspective that balances internal knowledge and relevant external experience”, the spokesperson said.
External experts are “not responsible for deciding the final recommendations”, but rather ”serve as an external sounding board“, the spokesperson added.
Several Commission employees told Contexte that they believed it would be senior management’s preferences that would ultimately shape the overhaul.
It is easier for those in charge “to hide behind the advice of an external group when making unpopular decisions”, one staffer said.
Don’t worry
Commission staff are also “actively shaping the outcomes” of the review, the Commission spokesperson said. Over 1,000 consultations took place over the summer, which were “integral” in shaping the process.
As Contexte first reported, 15 internal working groups led by senior managers from the Commission’s Directorates-General will examine the restructuring in parallel to Day’s external review.
The working groups are divided into three categories: “people and culture”, focused on improving internal collaboration; “structures”, assessing options to streamline the Commission’s administrative set-up; and “processes”, examining how AI tools could be used to cut bureaucracy.
Around 150 Commission employees participate across the 15 working groups, the Commission said, and all staff can share their thoughts via a suggestion box on an internal website. Staff associations dismiss this as insufficient.
If concrete proposals that affect working conditions are put forward, negotiations between management and staff representatives — known as “social-dialogue procedures” — will be set up, the spokesperson said.
Commissioner Serafin will integrate recommendations from both the external and internal streams into a final report. As Day’s expert group proposals may challenge some of those emerging internally, the final report is expected to provide several scenarios for von der Leyen and her cabinet to choose from.
Left in the dark
Unlike efforts across the Atlantic to streamline the American administration, Commission officials stress that a drive for “efficiency” does not mean job cuts.
The proposed EU budget, in fact, seeks an additional 2,500 staff for the Commission (a 7.6% increase) — a request member states are widely expected to reject.
Commission officials also confirm that permanent staff posts will not be cut, a fear that gained traction following Day’s comments in a November podcast — comments she later said were “misquoted”.
Staff regulations, which cover everything from working hours to internal recruitment procedures, are also not expected to be reopened.
However, trade unions, including Alliance, Generation 2004, USF, and U4U/USHU, have demanded a more formal role in the review, criticising the lack of dialogue with officials.
Commissioner Serafin will meet staff representatives in early 2026, the spokesperson said, adding that “it is important that the roles of the administration, the Central Staff Committee and the trade unions remain clear and independent from each other.”
A hybrid meeting on 21 November — open to all Commission staff members —did little to allay internal fears.
While employees aired concerns directly to the review’s chiefs, including Quest, Serafin and Day, their focus remained on the need to improve staff well-being — and not the future shape of the civil service.
Edited by Anca Gurzu