European Parliament President Martin Schulz has launched a plan to reassign several aides from his own cabinet to top administrative roles in the assembly, prompting complaints that he is politicizing what is normally a bureaucratic hiring process.

Schulz told leading MEPs in Strasbourg earlier this month that he wants his current chief of staff and longtime aide, Markus Winkler, to be the next deputy secretary general of the institution, according to sources who attended the meeting. That post, the number-two staff job in the legislature's administration, is currently held by Francesca Ratti, who is retiring.

In addition, the sources said, Schulz wants to replace the Parliament's long-serving director for budgetary affairs, Anne Vitrey, with Monika Strasser, his former budget adviser who is now head of unit for protocol in the assembly's secretariat. He is also proposing several other reassignments for staffers from his cabinet to posts in the Parliament's administration.

"It is now a general trend in the Parliament that to earn Schulz's favor, you need to be a German and a Socialist" — Philippe Lamberts

The moves are still subject to a formal application process that is also open to external candidates. But critics in the institution are already taking aim at what they say is Schulz acting in his own interest — and that of the major political groups in the Parliament including his Socialists & Democrats — rather than that of the whole institution. A similar effort two years ago by Schulz sparked an outcry in the Parliament, which passed a resolution condemning the "undermining" of staff regulations.

“It is now a general trend in the Parliament that to earn Schulz’s favor, you need to be German and a Socialist," said Philippe Lamberts, the president of the Green party in the Parliament, an apparent reference to the fact that several of the candidates backed by Schulz are either German or Austrian. “It is an insult to diversity.”

Some see the moves as an effort by Schulz to position himself to stay on as Parliament president — or at least to ensure that his allies are protected in key positions if he does not manage to keep the job and ends up leaving the EU stage — beyond the planned end of his term in January 2017.

"At least, even if he goes back to Germany, he could still rely on allies at the Parliament," said one Parliament official.

Others say Schulz is positioning Winkler to eventually replace the Parliament's current Secretary General Klaus Welle, with whom the president has had a difficult relationship. Welle's current contract runs through 2019.

Striking a balance

Schulz's office said there is nothing out of the ordinary about the proposed job moves, which are part of a public hiring process that runs through early June. But others said they were a sign that politics are playing a bigger role in the allocation of administrative posts in the Parliament.

Current budget director Vitrey, who will reach retirement age in 2017, said that while "political pressure has not been directly exerted" on her to make way for a Schulz ally, "one can easily feel it in the house as far as top management — or even recently middle management posts — are concerned."

She added that the Parliament's main party groups — Schulz's center-left Socialists & Democrats and the center-right European People's Party — had been working to strike "a political balance" among the top parliamentary jobs.

Vitrey's comment echoes concerns by other staffers that Parliament staff moves are no longer what one of them called "open, transparent procedures that are based on expertise.” Now, they are part of a larger political game.

"Even at the Commission, this would make people speechless" — anonymous EU official

Schulz has pushed in recent months to centralize the assembly's power in a stronger presidency and major political groups, in order to marginalize smaller, generally Euroskeptic forces. According to interviews with several Parliament staff members, that push now includes politically pre-arranged nominations for top posts, which have become more frequent under his presidency.

“Nominations are made under procedures that have already been politically negotiated and already agreed upon totally, before the procedure even starts,” a Parliament official said. “If there wasn’t any arranged procedures, if the procedure were done rigorously, there would be many more internal candidates.”

Others in Parliament said Schulz was trying to give Germany too many of the assembly's leadership roles. Lamberts and several officials all noted that if Winkler’s appointment is confirmed and if Schulz stays in office, the Parliament would have a German president, a German secretary-general and a German deputy secretary-general.

"This has never been seen before," said one official. "Even at the Commission, this would make people speechless.”

At this month's meeting of the Parliament's Bureau, a leadership group that includes Schulz, the assembly's 14 vice presidents and other MEPs with administrative oversight duties, several current or impending job vacancies were discussed, according to a Schulz aide, adding that no final decisions were made.

"Those posts will be published and are open procedures to which anybody can apply who fulfills the necessary requirements such as work experience," said Armin Machmer, Schulz's spokesman. "No other post, be it director generals or deputy secretary generals, were discussed or decided."

Machmer himself is another Schulz loyalist said to be lined up for a top administrative post, despite a background mostly as a political aide. According to sources familiar with the talks earlier this month, he is being pushed by Schulz for either a director or a director general post in Luxembourg, where his family lives.

"Whether I will apply or not to any of the posts remains to be seen and I will decide in time," Machmer said. "In any case I have a right to apply as anybody else. It would certainly be perfectly normal after years in a senior position to apply for a post in middle or higher management."

Another Schulz aide, press officer Markus Engels, has been positioned to run Europa Experience, the assembly's newly opened "mini-Parlamentarium" visitor center and museum in Berlin.

Engels declined to comment about the job move, but Parliament spokesperson Marjory van den Broeke said the hiring procedure for the Berlin post had not yet been completed.

Schulz, according to the sources familiar with the meeting in Strasbourg, also proposed that his cabinet aide Sonia Wollny, an advisor to Winkler, be named head of unit for the influential Conference of Presidents, which includes the leaders of the assembly's political groups. Wollny said in an email that the hiring process for the job was still underway.

"As an already rather long-serving administrator, I truly trust the administration to recruit the most competent of the candidates, which, I believe, given the position, are probably numerous," Wollny said.

Office politics

Schulz was willing to do some horse-trading with the Parliament's other major political group, the center-right EPP, in order to push for top positions for his cabinet members, according to sources familiar with the talks in Strasbourg. That included an agreement for an EPP candidate to take the reins of the influential Directorate for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs.

Michael Alexander Speiser, who is currently the head of Working Group Legal and Home Affairs, is set to be appointed to the role, where he will manage a cluster of five parliamentary committees, as well as a policy department that oversees a multi-million-euro budget for outsourcing background studies to academia.

Schulz is hoping to finalize negotiations with other party leaders on the job changes before or soon after the summer, well before the end of his term, according to sources.

The recruitment policy of the Parliament has stirred controversy before. During a budget debate in April 2014, the Parliament voted a resolution describing as “political hijacking of management positions” and “undermining of the Staff Regulations” the earmarking of five members of the president's cabinet for posts as directors-general or directors in Parliament's administration.

Two of the officials in that staff shuffle were Winkler and Herwig Kaiser, Schulz’s then-head of cabinet. Three other former advisors to Schulz — Alexandre Stutzmann, Maria José Martinez Iglesias and Lorenzo Mannelli — were placed in director roles.

