PRESENTATION / Traineeships
Welcome
to the Committee of the Regions' Traineeship Office
Introduction
Each year, the Committee of the Regions (CoR) provides a limited number of internships for young citizens, from Europe and elsewhere, offering them the opportunity to acquire work experience in a European institution.
Two types of internships are available: long-term paid traineeships (stages) or short-term unpaid study periods (séjours d'étude).
Below you will find further information regarding the internships at the Committee of the Regions and the legal rules governing them.
General information
What does a traineeship at the
Committee of the Regions involve?
Each year, the Committee of the Regions offers young university graduates a limited number of five-month traineeships (stages). These training periods involve work experience in one of the Committee of the Regions' services, and run from 16 February until 15 July (spring traineeships) or from 16 September until 15 February (autumn traineeships).
The nature of the tasks to be fulfilled by trainees depends largely on the unit to which they are assigned; while some units are more political, others are more administrative. But in general, the type of work assigned to trainees is equivalent to that performed by junior executive-grade officials.
In general terms, the objective of in-service training at the Committee of the Regions is:
- to give trainees a general idea of the objectives of
and problems encountered in the European integration process;
- to provide them with practical knowledge of the
workings of the Committee's services;
- to enable them to acquire personal experience in an
multi-cultural public working environment through contacts made in their
everyday work;
- to enable them to develop and put into practice the
knowledge they have acquired during their studies or careers.
- Admission to in-service training does not give trainees the status of officials or of other staff members of the European Communities.
Who can apply?
To apply for a traineeship at the Committee of the Regions, a number of basic requirements must be fulfilled (by the beginning of the traineeship period). Applicants must:
- be a national of one of the Member States or a State
that is a candidate for accession
- either hold a university degree (or an equivalent
diploma) awarded after at least three years of study, or have successfully
completed at least four years (eight semesters) of university studies;
- or be employed in the public or private sector,
provided that they have a university or equivalent degree or have been engaged
for at least three years in planning or advisory duties.
- have a thorough knowledge of one of the Community Languages
and a satisfactory knowledge of another of these languages, one of which has to be either English or French (working languages)
Given the fact that the CoR traineeship programme is primarily aimed at young graduates at the beginning of their career, trainees must in principle be less than thirty-two (32) years old at the beginning of their traineeship.
However, when good reasons exist, derogation to the age limit can be granted at the applicant's request. For that purpose, the applicant must send a specific written request to the Traineeship Office, setting out the appropriate justification for such an exemption.
In order to enable as many young graduates as possible to observe the workings of a European institution from the inside, applicants should not have had any previous in-service training or employment within any of the other European institutions or bodies.
[1] The official languages of the EU are Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Irish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish.
How to apply?
Since the number of applications received far outnumbers the places available (the CoR generally receives some 1600 applications for each traineeship period, and currently only 20 traineeships are available, it is important that you understand the recruitment procedures and that you follow them correctly.
Applications are to be made exclusively via the Internet.
The on-line application form is available on the following website:
http://trainee.cor.europa.eu/default.aspx?inst=COR&culture=EN
Please note that the on-line application form is available only in the Committee of the Regions' main working languages, English and French.
Once an application has been submitted electronically, the Traineeship Office will send an acknowledgement of receipt by e-mail. It is therefore very important to give your correct e-mail address on the application form.
With this e-mail, candidates will also receive a personal access code that will allow them to check the status of their application on-line later on (see the tentative timeframe set out below).
Applicants can check the status of their application on the following website:
http://trainee.cor.europa.eu/status.aspx?inst=COR&culture=EN
Please note that once an application has been registered, it can no longer be modified. No new elements, other then a mere rectification of inaccurate or incomplete data, can be added to the file.
It may also be noted that all personal information submitted to the Committee of the Regions in connection with its traineeship programme is processed in line with Regulation (EC) 45/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2000 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data by the Community institutions and bodies and on the free movement of such data, and according to the terms of the related Specific Privacy Statement.
Do trainees get paid?
CoR trainees on a paid internship who are not gainfully employed are in principle entitled to a monthly grant. The current monthly grant is 1.000 euros.
An additional monthly allowance of 100 euros can be awarded to a married trainee whose spouse is not gainfully employed.
Which service should I apply to?
Although you are not obliged to indicate any preferences in the application form, you can apply for a traineeship within the CoR department of your choice (see the Committee of the Regions' organic structure indicated elsewhere on this website).
You may indicate up to three different preferences. However, as these preferences are only indicative, you may end up being selected by a unit to which you did not apply directly.
Deadlines for applications?
The electronic application form must be submitted within the following timeframe:
- between 1 April and 30 September (midnight, Brussels local time) of the preceding year, for
spring traineeships;
- between 1 October and 31 March (midnight, Brussels local time) of the same year, for autumn traineeships.
Any application received outside of these timeframes, will not be accepted by the Traineeship Office.
Where appropriate, the same deadlines apply for the postal submission of a request for derogation in respect of the age limit. These requests need to be postmarked before the deadline.
Selection procedure
The selection procedure consists of three phases:
- a prior eligibility check;
- a pre-selection phase;
- a selection phase.
First stage - Prior Eligibility
Check
When the application deadline has expired, the Traineeship Office analyses all applications received from a formal point of view. The purpose of this phase is to check that all formal, background and eligibility criteria are met. When this examination has been completed, applicants will be able to check the status of their application on-line.
Where an application is rejected, the reasons for the rejection (such as insufficient qualifications, insufficient language ability, absence of a request for age derogation, age limit exemption refused, etc.) will also be indicated on-line.
Second stage - Pre-Selection
After the eligibility checks, all admissible applications are registered in a database that is made available to all CoR departments interested in having a trainee.
At this junction, the recruiting services pre-select a number of applicants who meet their needs and fit their profile requirements. The pre-selection is made solely and directly by the recruiting services. The pre-selection criteria (such as academic qualifications, professional experience, languages, reasons for application, reasons for selecting a particular service, etc.) can differ in time and depend largely on the profile of the unit concerned.
At the end of this phase, each service sends the list with pre-selected applicants to the Traineeship Office, with an indication of their ranking.
Third stage - Selection
Before completing the selection phase, the Traineeship Office will operate a further and final eligibility check on the pre-selected applicants.
Any false statement or omission in the application form, even if unintentional, may lead to the rejection of the application or the cancellation of a traineeship. Once the various services have sent the outcome of their pre-selection to the Traineeship Office, the Office will contact the pre-selected applicants and invite them to send supporting documents confirming the statements made in their application form.
On the basis of the documents, the Traineeship Office will then make a final eligibility check. The main aim is to analyse whether the information contained in the application form is correct and whether the stated qualifications have been acquired, in order to ensure that the eligibility criteria have been met.
The supporting documents are to be sent to the following address:
Committee of the Regions
Traineeship Office
101 Rue Belliard
B - 1040 Brussels
As the pre-selected applicants will be requested to send in these documents at very short notice, applicants are strongly advised to start assembling all relevant supporting documents at the time of application!
If you are pre-selected, you will be required to include the following documents in your paper file (insofar as they apply to the statements made in the application form):
- a paper copy of your application form, with each page
signed;
- a photocopy of your passport or identity card,
stating your surname, first name, date and place of birth, as well as your
nationality (the spelling of your surname, first name and your nationality
must be the same as those declared on the application form);
- photocopies of all university or equivalent
degrees/diplomas you have obtained and that you have declared in your
application (for candidates who have completed their degree course but who
have not yet received an official degree certificate, an official statement
from your university confirming your degree result is sufficient);
- for ongoing studies, an official declaration from the
relevant university must be submitted confirming your registration for the
course declared on the application form.
- If applicable, declarations proving previous employment and/or traineeship experiences
Please ensure that your application is complete and duly signed at the time of posting, as the Traineeships Office will not accept documents that have not been sent by the deadline indicated when applicants were informed that they had been pre-selected.
If any of the above-mentioned documents are not written in one of the Community languages, it is imperative to include a certified translation into one of the main working languages of the Committee of the Regions (English or French) with the document. Failure to do so will result in rejection of the application.
While not mandatory, attaching translations (in English or French) of documents written in another official EU-language to the file will of course be appreciated.
Any other supporting document (such as CV, reference letters, marks obtained, etc.) can be attached to the file, but these are not compulsory. Please do not however attach copies of your PhD thesis, or any publications or studies you have published or have been involved in publishing.
Please do not send the originals of your diplomas etc. The Traineeship Office will not return any certificates or diplomas.
Once the final eligibility check has been completed, the selection phase can be concluded.
Where the final eligibility check shows that the statements made in the application form are confirmed by the supporting documents, the Traineeship Office will contact the pre-selected candidates by the order of preference indicated by the respective recruiting services at the time of pre-selection, in order to offer them a traineeship.
If the successful applicants accept the traineeship, they will be offered a contract provided the following additional documents are forwarded to the Traineeship Office before the traineeship begins:
- a statement from the police that the applicant has
not been convicted of any serious offences;
- a medical certificate stating that the applicant is
fit to work and has no infectious illness;
- where appropriate, a statement indicating whether the trainee or his spouse is gainfully employed or receiving a grant or any other maintenance allowance from any other source and, if so, the amounts involved.
Once all traineeships have been assigned, the selection phase is concluded. The other pre-selected candidates are then placed on a reserve list.
Unsuccessful candidates may re-apply for a subsequent traineeship period at the Committee of the Regions.
Tentative
timeframe (for information purposes only)
|
Procedural phase
|
Spring traineeship
|
Autumn traineeship
|
|
Deadline for applications
|
30 September of previous year
|
31 March of same year
|
|
Target Date for prior eligibility check
|
Mid-October of previous year
|
Mid-May of same year
|
|
Target Date for pre-selection
|
Mid-November of previous year
|
Mid-June of same year
|
|
Target Date for sending documents
|
End of November of previous year
|
End of June of same year
|
|
Target Date for final eligibility check
|
Mid-December of previous year
|
Mid-July of same year
|
|
Target Date for final selection
|
End of December of previous year
|
End of July of same year
|
Documents
- a paper copy of your application form, with each page
signed;
- a photocopy of your passport or identity card,
stating your surname, first name, date and place of birth, as well as your
nationality (the spelling of your surname, first name and your nationality
must be the same as those declared on the application form);
- photocopies of all university or equivalent
degrees/diplomas you have obtained and that you have declared in your
application (for candidates who have completed their degree course but who
have not yet received an official degree certificate, an official statement
from your university confirming your degree result is sufficient);
- for ongoing studies, an official declaration from the
relevant university must be submitted confirming your registration for the
course declared on the application form
- If applicable, declarations proving previous
employment and/or traineeship experiences
- a statement from the police that the applicant has
not been convicted of any serious offences;
- a medical certificate;
- where appropriate, a statement indicating whether the trainee or his spouse is gainfully employed or receiving a grant or any other maintenance allowance from any other source and, if so, the amounts involved.
Please ensure that your application is complete and duly signed at the time of posting, as the Traineeships Office will not accept documents that have not been sent by the deadline indicated when applicants were informed that they had been pre-selected.
Insurance
There is monthly contribution deducted automatically from every trainee's monthly grant for the medical insurance and compulsory accident insurance.
If a trainee is already covered by another medical insurance, proof of it must be presented to the Committee no later than at the start of the traineeship period.
If the trainee is not covered by any other medical insurance and/or did not present the necessary proof by the start of the traineeship, he/she will be covered by the CoR's medical insurance scheme automatically.
Accomodation
No specific facilities are available in terms of transport or accommodation.
To find an accommodation in Brussels, check the property agencies on the Internet.
When you are already in Brussels, look for the signs "TE HUUR/A LOUER" (for rent) on the windows.
Useful information about the different communes of Brussels can also be checked on the website of the Brussels Europe Liaison Office
Travel allowance
Within certain limits and according to certain procedures, travel expenses incurred in travelling to Brussels shall be reimbursed.
In order to receive the reimbursement for your travel, you have to present the documents (train or plain tickets, boarding passes, electronic booking forms, invoices …) to the Traineeships Office.
Rules governing paid in-service
training at the Committee of the Regions
Decision
180/2008 of 20 February 2008
Annex I
Annex II
Contact
Please do not hesitate to contact the Committee of the Regions' Traineeship Office if you require any further information.
Email:
trainee@cor.europa.eu
Fax: +32 (0)2 282 2213
Disclaimer
Please note that due to the extremely high number of applications we receive, the system may encounter problems processing the large amounts of data when reaching the deadline for submission of applications. We, therefore, advise candidates to send in their application well ahead of the deadline.
No correspondence is carried-out regarding individual entries and we do not provide feedback on assessment or progression of the applications.
Short term unpaid study periods
What does a study period at the
Committee of the Regions entail?
The Committee of the Regions also offers short unpaid study periods (séjours d'étude) within one of its services to persons whose professional, academic or research activities indicate that they would familiarise with the Committee's practical workings and/or policies.
The nature of the tasks to be fulfilled by trainees depends largely on the unit to which they are assigned; while some units are more political, others are more administrative. But in general, the type of work assigned to trainees is equivalent to that performed by junior executive-grade officials.
In general terms, the objectives of such study periods at the Committee of the Regions are:
- to allow the beneficiaries to complete a concrete
project, clearly established in advance;
- to give them a general idea of the objectives of and
problems encountered in the European integration process;
- to provide them with practical knowledge of the
workings of the Committee's departments;
- to enable them to participate in exchange programmes between the CoR and national, regional or local administrations.
Admission to in-service training does not give trainees the status of officials or of other staff members of the European Communities.
All expenses incurred in such study period are to be covered by the beneficiaries: they receive neither grant, nor any other financial support from the Committee of the Regions and are responsible for providing their own medical insurance.
Who can apply?
To apply for an unpaid study period at the Committee of the Regions, a number of basic requirements must be fulfilled (by the beginning of the study period). Applicants must:
- be a national of one of the Member States or a State
that is a candidate for accession
- either hold a university degree (or an equivalent
diploma) awarded after at least three years of study, and be able to show that
they need to deepen their knowledge of the Committee of the Regions for
reasons related to their professional, academic or research activities;
- or be a staff member of a national, regional or local
administration participating in an exchange programme with the Committee of
the Regions;
- have a good command of at least one of the main working languages of the Committee of the Regions (English or French).
We are aware of the fact that a significant number of academic courses require students to pursue an internship. Given the selection criteria, however, students can as a general rule only apply for this kind of internship at the Committee of the Regions if they are pursuing post-graduate studies.
How to apply?
There are no fixed deadlines for unpaid study periods.
Applications should be sent by post to the Traineeship Office, at the following address:
Committee of the Regions
Traineeship Office
Rue Belliard 101
B -1040 Brussels
Applications must include:
- a recent CV
- the contextual and personal reasons for the
application;
- a legible copy of passport or identity card, giving
the surname(s), forename(s), date and place of birth and a nationality
- for students, an official certificate from the
education establishment certifying:
- that the applicant is required to complete a
training course as part of his course of study or for access to a profession
- that he is required to carry out research for a thesis or a doctorate
- copies of all the relevant diplomas and/or
certificates
- copies of all relevant attestations of professional
experience
- proof of knowledge of at least one of the CoR's main
working languages (English or French)
- police record of good behaviour
- the requested timeframe;
- the service(s) to which you would prefer to be
assigned
- proof of health insurance.
It may be noted that all personal information submitted to the Committee of the Regions in the framework of an application for a study period is processed in line with Regulation (EC) 45/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2000 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data by the Community institutions and bodies and on the free movement of such data, and according to the terms of the related Specific Privacy Statement.
The Traineeship Office will inform applicants as quickly as possible whether their application has been successful.
Please note however that the Committee of the Regions cannot guarantee to offer unpaid traineeships within the requested timeframe. In practice, demand far exceeds our capacity to accept applications, and the latter largely depends on a number of variables such the availability of offices and of internship advisors.
Duration of the study period
The maximum duration for an unpaid traineeship at the Committee of the Regions is 4 months. The timeframe for such traineeships is flexible and is subject to agreement between the applicant and the unit to which the trainee is likely to be assigned.
Expenses and insurances
All expenses incurred in unpaid study period are to be covered by the beneficiaries: they receive neither grant, nor any other financial support from the Committee of the Regions and are responsible for providing their own medical insurance (compulsory).
Proof of health insurance cover must be submitted before the start of the traineeship.
Accomodation
No specific facilities are available in terms of transport or accommodation.
To find an accommodation in Brussels, check the property agencies on the Internet.
When you are already in Brussels, look for the signs "TE HUUR/A LOUER" (for rent) on the windows.
Useful information about the different communes of Brussels can also be checked on the website of the Brussels Europe Liaison Office
Rules governing
unpaid study periods at the Committee of the Regions
Decision
180/2008 of 20 February 2008 (Articles 14 to 18)
Annex I
Annex II
Contact
Please do not hesitate to contact the Committee of the Regions' Traineeship Office if you require any further information.
Email:
trainee@cor.europa.eu
Fax: +32 (0)2 282 2213
Disclaimer
Please note that due to the extremely high number of applications we receive, the system may encounter problems processing the large amounts of data when reaching the deadline for submission of applications. We, therefore, advise candidates to send in their application well ahead of the deadline.
No correspondence is carried-out regarding individual entries and we do not provide feedback on assessment or progression of the applications.