Government still hiring for EU presidency, number of positions increases to 1,300
The Estonian government is hiring more than 300 additional officials for the period of its presidency of the Council of the European Union in the second half of this year. Altogether, this pushes the total number of people working on the presidency to more than 1,000.
For Tallinn alone more than 200 events are planned for the second half of 2017, including 11 high-level ministerial meetings, daily Eesti Päevaleht reported on Thursday.
As of mid-January, most of the officials on the project are already hired or assigned. The majority of the roughly 1,300 people will work on projects connected with political subjects, altogether about 1,000. The remainder mainly works on the preparation of various visits and events.
For temporary positions created only for the period of the presidency, the Government Office is hiring communications experts and event coordinators, most of which are coming from the private sector.
The Government Office is also looking for partners to take care of various tasks, including editors, translators, and liaison officers that will support Estonia’s delegations set to travel abroad.
The personnel costs make up some 55% of the total budget of the presidency, which amounts to €75m. The money is distributed across the 2015-2018 state budgets and includes the cost of sending delegations as well as officials abroad.
Editor: Editor: Dario Cavegn