Average seniority and Sefcovic’s guarantees

There are four categories of staff that are concerned by the promotion exercise:

 AD – Administrator

AST – Assistant

AST/C – Secretaries (employed before 2004 only)

AST/D  – Clerical Staff (employed before 2004 only)

While categories AST/C and AST/D are being ‘phased out’ (no more employment since 2004) among categories AD and AST there are three types of grades in the EU:

• entry grades with 3 years average promotion speed
• normal grades with 4 years average promotion speed
• end-of-career grades with 5 years average promotion speed

The average promotion speed per grade are laid down in Annex IB of the Staff Regulations, by means of ‘promotion rates’ expressed in percentage points. These are by no means individual entitlements for promotion, but counted across the entire Commission population, over a period of 5 years.

The so-called ‘guarantees’ emitted by Commissioner Sefcovic in charge of Human Resources at the Commission guarantee a minimum percentage of population in a grade to be promoted at average speed or quicker for the various types of grades (3-4-5 years). 

AD grades:

AST – AST/C and AST/D grades: