JOBS JOBS JOBS (IN PARLIAMENT): The European Parliament wants to further increase its number of staff by 322 people next year, according to a “non paper,” seen by POLITICO, that was put on the table for negotiations on the budget for 2022. Last month, the Commission presented a draft that includes Parliament’s forecast of the staff it needs, and “the Commission has not modified this proposal,” the document says. And so, Parliament “has foreseen 142 additional establishment plan posts and 180 additional external staff” for next year.
Now that’s asking a lot. The document also includes a graph showing the Parliament is the only EU institution that has increased its staff during the past 10 years, while the Commission and Council have both been below the 2012 headcount for several years. And while the paper mentions a “gentlemen’s agreement” reached in the 1970s that would tie the hands of EU member countries as “the Council undertakes to make no amendment