Madrid is suing the European Commission over its efforts to rebalance the mixture of nationalities among the EU’s civil service.

The Commission has long struggled to fix its skewed nationality mix that favours 13 member states – including Spain, Belgium, Italy, Romania, and Greece. Other countries such as Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Czechia and the Netherlands, are under-represented according to the EU executive’s own data.

So far, efforts have only delivered incremental progress in rebalancing the scales.

Now the Commission has formally tasked its departments with taking nationality explicitly into account when employing new civil servants.

Stephen Quest, the Commission’s HR director general, this month informed departments that the Commission has established an “overall nationality-based recruitment target” meaning that one in every two officials hired must be from an under-represented nationality.

In a letter to fellow director generals dated 4 June, Quest wrote that half of all interviewees must be from an under-represented country, and that when two candidates are judged to be equally qualified, priority should be given to the candidate from the less represented country. “Implementation of these measures will be based on the paramount recruitment principle of merit,” he added.

Spain has lodged a lawsuit at the Court of Justice, alleging that the Commission’s move constitutes “discrimination on the ground of nationality.” A Spanish government spokesperson declined to comment on the record.

There are currently 2,790 civil servants with Spanish nationality in the Commission, out of 32,484.

The Commission first opened the door to nationality-based recruitment targets late last year, breaking with a long-standing practice of insisting that nationality should not be considered when hiring EU officials.

Spain, Italy, and France are already suing the European Parliament for its move to open recruitment drives that are focused explicitly on recruiting from certain under-represented nationalities, such as Austrians.

The three countries argue nationality-specific recruitment drives are anathema to the merit-based hiring rules enshrined in EU law. The European Court of Justice is expected to rule on the case later this year.

EU ambassadors will discuss the moves to improve the geographical balance in the Commission on Friday. A document prepared for their perusal describes the current imbalances as “structural rather than temporary”.

The EU’s efforts have been hampered by problems plaguing the Commission’s general entry exam since 2019. When applications finally opened in 2026, almost 170,000 applied – almost half of which were Italians.

(bw, jp)