EU Employs More People Than the British Army

[Bono]

http://openeurope.org.uk/media-centre/pressrelease.aspx?pressreleaseid=82

EMBARGO MONDAY: The EU's 170,000-strong army of bureaucrats

08 August 2008

A study released by Open Europe today finds that the EU now employs an "army" of bureaucrats.

 

# 170,000 people now work for the EU institutions. As well as those who work for the EU directly, the study finds that there are many more officials working for the EU indirectly. For example: working for the EU agencies; working for the EU overseas; sitting on EU policy committees; or working in the member states' representations to the EU. In total there are far more people working for the EU (170,000) than in the UK army (107,000).

 
# The Commission claims that the EU's bureaucratic employees are "fewer than the number of staff employed by a typical medium-sized city council in Europe." But when the full picture is revealed, in fact, the EU employs the equivalent of the entire population of a medium-sized European city. Swansea, for instance, has roughly the same number of inhabitants as the EU employs.

 
# In fact, the study finds that the EU now employs more people than the combined total of staff working for the Treasury (1,451), the Home Office (25,299), the Department for Work and Pensions (107,998), the Department for Health (3,467), the Foreign Office (16,169), the Department for International Development (1,612), the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (809), and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (7,854).

 

Open Europe analyst Nick Cosgrove said:

 

"The Commission desperately tries to play down just how many people are now working for the EU. They are extremely secretive about the number of people who are working to churn out regulations."

 

"These people are not elected, and cannot be held accountable by ordinary citizens. But they have a huge effect on our lives, affecting everything from the price of electricity and food to the way we run the NHS."

 
"The huge number of people now working for the EU reflects its huge influence. The difficulty of finding out how many officials are working there reflects the EU's wider problem with a lack of transparency. It is a complicated and opaque institution, which leaves it wide open to influence from lobbyists and vested interests."

 
The full calculations are available below.

(more on the link)

[dead0man]

This is surprising to no one.

[Iosif is a COTHO]

Why exactly is that a bad thing, or even vaguely unusual?

[Јas]

So what?

[Peter]

So what?

Obviously, they are going to invade, so we better all exercise our right to bear Gatling Guns so we can help the British Army out and repel the invasion force.

[Bono]

So what?

So, they routinely claim that the EU employs no more people than an average local government unit. This comes to show that it's not the case--and even if it were, like Gustaf pointed out a while ago, a local government employs real people, not overpaid bureaucrats doing nothing useful.

[Јas]

So what?

So, they routinely claim that the EU employs no more people than an average local government unit.

The EU have said that the Commission has approximately 23,000 employees - which it says is "in fact it is fewer than the number of staff employed by a typical medium-sized city council in Europe" (something I have no idea as to the veracity of).

Your press release says that the EU has 170,000 employees (which the postscript to the release reveals to involve a great deal of guesswork and indeed many people who clearly are not on the payroll of the EU, e.g. 36,200 are put down to 'national buruacracies', and 10,553 are put down to 'Overseas Missions', which are almost all military and security related personnel paid and sent by national governments) and strongly implies that this is the figure to which the EU refered when comparing staff numbers to those of a city council.

This comes to show that it's not the case--and even if it were, like Gustaf pointed out a while ago, a local government employs real people, not overpaid bureaucrats doing nothing useful.

In my experience, many local government employees are real people, but are unfortunately doing nothing useful. So, yes, I wouldn't doubt there may be many EU employees who aren't doing much of use - however simply stating that there are X number of employees doesn't even begin to address this point. All you're saying is that the EU employs X number of people - for all anyone knows they may all be necessary, they may be overstaffed or they may be overstaffed. You're better off pointing out that X people are employed doing Y, where Y is "nothing useful".

[Gustaf]

Jas, the point is that when one says that a local government employs "X number of people" this tends to include people doing real jobs - i.e. teachers, police officers, nurses, doctors, etc (depending on what kind of local system is used in the country in question, etc). They may also be office workers handling, say, the payment o welfare benefits, etc. Mostly, they are real jobs. But a lot of the people working in the EU have jobs that are only meaningful to other people working within the EU bureacracy but without relevance outside it. They are not offering anything tangible to people outside of it. That is the difference.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

But a lot of the people working in the EU have jobs that are only meaningful to other people working within the EU bureacracy but without relevance outside it. They are not offering anything tangible to people outside of it.

Actually, that's true of all bureaucracies. Those in the private sector as well.

[Јas]

Jas, the point is that when one says that a local government employs "X number of people" this tends to include people doing real jobs - i.e. teachers, police officers, nurses, doctors, etc (depending on what kind of local system is used in the country in question, etc). They may also be office workers handling, say, the payment o welfare benefits, etc. Mostly, they are real jobs. But a lot of the people working in the EU have jobs that are only meaningful to other people working within the EU bureacracy but without relevance outside it. They are not offering anything tangible to people outside of it. That is the difference.

I understand the point, but while it's one thing to compare the size of the EU civil service to a local one, one can't reasonably compare their functionality. In that sense it's best to compare the EU bureaucracy with a national bureacracy, to which, one presumes, one can attribute much the same complaint as you raise above.

[minionofmidas]

But a lot of the people working in the EU have jobs that are only meaningful to other people working within the EU bureacracy but without relevance outside it. They are not offering anything tangible to people outside of it.

Actually, that's true of all bureaucracies. Those in the private sector as well.

The relation is certainly worse in the EU bureaucracy (or in any major private company) than in local government... not that it could possibly be worse than in the British Army, mind you, where the percentage of people doing meaningful work is bound to be nil.

[Silent Hunter]

Er, the Commission is not the whole of the European Union...