1.   Candidates shall be at least 18 years old on the starting date of their traineeship.

2.   Candidates shall be nationals of a Member State of the European Union or nationals of a candidate country benefiting from a pre-accession strategy. In exceptional and duly justified circumstances, the service, which wishes to accept traineeship applications from nationals of other non-EU countries, must seek prior agreement from DG HR.

3.   During the selection phase, certain Commission departments may decide not to open their traineeship positions to pre-selected candidates of non-EU nationalities due to the nature of the planned tasks, irrespective of paragraph 2. Relevant information, as provided by the Commission departments, shall be published on a dedicated website managed by the Traineeships Office.

4.   Candidates who have any previous or ongoing professional experience in a European institution, body or agency (8) longer than six weeks (42 calendar days) before starting their traineeship shall be excluded from the traineeship. This includes any kind of traineeship (formal or informal, paid or unpaid, full or part-time), as well as being an accredited parliamentary assistant or an assistant to a Member of the European Parliament, an intra-muros consultant or researcher, a temporary staff member, a contract staff member, an interim staff member, etc.

1.   There shall be two types of traineeships: traineeships in administration aimed at higher education graduates and vocational education and training (‘VET’) graduates, and traineeships in translation.

2.   Depending on the specific type of Blue Book Traineeship, candidates shall also meet the following conditions:

1.   The Traineeships Office shall establish the application procedure, and all applications shall be submitted in accordance with that procedure. All necessary instructions shall be published on a dedicated website managed by the Traineeships Office.

2.   The candidates shall only submit one application for a particular traineeship session.

3.   Candidates are to provide copies of degrees or other certificates as proof of all required qualifications, including all studies, VET qualification certificate, professional and international experience declared in their application. For declared studies and training that are ongoing, an official declaration from the relevant institution or provider shall be required.

4.   Candidates whose graduate degree certificates are not issued in one of the official languages of the European Union shall be asked to provide a translation of these documents into English, French or German.

5.   The knowledge of the languages declared in the application shall be duly supported by an appropriate justification, including degree certificates, proof of having studied for a certain period time in the language in question. This requirement does not apply to a candidate’s mother tongue.

6.   The Traineeships Office shall automatically reject all applications received after the closing date. Candidates shall provide all supporting documents as required by the established procedure. The Traineeships Office shall not accept any change of information after the deadline for applications.

1.   The main objective of the preselection is to provide Commission departments with the best possible choice of candidates with the widest possible range of educational backgrounds and from the broadest possible geographical range among nationals of Member States, from which its departments can make their final selection.

2.   The Traineeships Office shall carry out the preselection according to the preselection guidelines and criteria published on a dedicated website. The preselection is confidential and its results only available to the Traineeships Office.

3.   The Traineeships Office reserves the right to amend the preselection process and criteria as and when necessary. The Traineeships Office shall publish such changes on a dedicated website before the start of the application period.

4.   The Traineeships Office shall identify the best candidates meeting the selection criteria based on the information declared in the application form.

5.   The Traineeships Office shall apply the guiding rates in accordance with the general provisions for implementing Article 27 of the Staff Regulations and Article 12(1) of the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the European Union.

6.   The Traineeships Office shall inform the candidates of their preselection after the eligibility check and the verification of the supporting documents.

1.1.   The Traineeships Office shall include preselected candidates in a database that is available to all the departments and services participating in the Blue Book Traineeship programme for the final selection, hereafter called the Virtual Blue Book. The Virtual Blue Book shall contain up to three times as many applicants as there are traineeship positions available.

1.2.   Taking into consideration departments’ and services’ needs and budget availability, the Traineeships Office shall determine the number of traineeship positions to be attributed to each service for each traineeship session. The services shall prepare a detailed job description outlining the main requirements and responsibilities for each allocated position.

1.3.   The Traineeships Office shall set out the procedure for preselected candidates through which they can apply to these positions. The procedure shall be published on a dedicated website. When no suitable candidate has been found or no application is received for a specific position, the services can proactively search among preselected candidates within the Virtual Blue Book to identify suitable candidates who meet the predefined criteria for those positions.

1.4.   The final decision to select candidates falls exclusively under the responsibility of the Commission departments and services and shall only take effect when the Traineeships Office sends the placement offer.

2.1.   The Traineeships Office shall sign and send a traineeship offer to all selected candidates for their signature. The traineeship offer shall be deemed as accepted and thus considered as traineeship agreement once it has been signed by the candidate and received by the Traineeships Office. Selected candidates can only be offered one single traineeship position for a given traineeship session.

2.2.   The Traineeships Office shall ensure that selected non-EU candidates provide all the documentation required by the authorities of the country to legally reside and work during their traineeship.

2.3.   Selected candidates who decline a traineeship offer shall be excluded from the ongoing selection process.

1.   Each traineeship session shall have a duration of five months.

2.   In exceptional and duly justified cases, upon agreement with the hosting entity, the traineeship may be shortened to a period of less than five months, with a minimum duration of three months. In such cases, the traineeship agreement shall begin on the 1st or the 16th day of a given month.

3.   The limitation under paragraph 1 does not apply to trainees continuing as part of the Liaison Committee under Article 26.

4.   There are two traineeship sessions per year:

1.   The Traineeships Office may terminate the traineeship at any moment, if it becomes apparent that the trainee knowingly made wrongful declarations or provided false statements or documentation at the time of application or during the traineeship period in breach of Article 5.

2.   Following a substantiated request from the HR service of the hosting entity, the Traineeships Office may terminate the traineeship at any moment after hearing the trainee. The grounds for termination may include a breach of this Decision, including the terms and conditions set out in the Annex to this Decision, the traineeship agreement, or situations related to the trainee’s underperformance, or conduct.

3.   Where a request under paragraph 2 is made for underperformance (including insufficient language skills), trainees shall be notified by their traineeship adviser of the underperformance and invited by the Traineeships Office for a discussion aimed at improving their performance. The traineeship may only be terminated if performance does not improve over the two weeks following that discussion.

1.   In exceptional cases and following a substantiated written request by the trainee stating the relevant reasons, the Traineeships Office may grant a suspension of up to two months, provided that the total active traineeship period amounts to at least three months.

2.   The traineeship grant and other payments shall be suspended for the relevant period, and the trainee shall not be entitled to the reimbursement of any travel expenses or health and accident insurance expenses incurred in connection with the suspension period. Any health insurance reimbursement requests made by the trainee during this period shall not be reimbursed.

3.   The trainee may return to complete the unfinished part of the traineeship only up to the end of the initial period of the traineeship.

1.1.   Trainees shall be awarded a monthly grant. The monthly grant to trainees is fixed at 25 % of the basic salary of an official at grade AD5, step 1. The basic grant shall be published for each traineeship session at the beginning of each application period on a dedicated website managed by the Traineeships Office.

1.2.   Following the annual or intermediate update of European Union officials and other servants’ basic salary, the monthly grant may be updated for the future session, to align it with the adjusted level of the basic salary referred to paragraph 1.1. The updated monthly grant shall remain unchanged for the duration of the traineeship session.

1.   Subject to available funding, trainees shall receive a travel allowance as a contribution to the travel expenses incurred to travel to and from the place of assignment at the beginning and the end of their traineeship. The allowance will be paid as a one-off payment at the beginning of the traineeship.

2.   The travel allowance shall be established by DG HR based on the average distance between EU capitals and Brussels, i.e. 1300 km, and the corresponding amount as foreseen in the Erasmus+ programme. The exact amount shall be published on a dedicated website managed by the Traineeships Office.

3.   When trainees choose to terminate the traineeship before completing the minimum traineeship period for reasons other than serious illness or force majeure, the Traineeships Office shall recover half of the paid travel allowance.

1.   Subject to available funding, trainees assigned to Commission departments in Luxembourg and living in the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg during their traineeship shall receive a supplementary accommodation allowance to partially cover their accommodation costs. This allowance shall be paid together with the monthly grant upon submission of relevant documents proving the trainee is living in Luxembourg during the traineeship.

2.   The amount of the accommodation allowance shall correspond to 20 % of the monthly grant foreseen for each traineeship session and shall be published on a dedicated website managed by the Traineeships Office at the beginning of each application period.

1.   Trainees whose place of assignment is not Brussels are entitled to receive a travel allowance when they are officially invited to Brussels by the Traineeships Office to attend a specific event and/or training.

2.   In addition to the allowance and under the same conditions as set out in paragraph 1, trainees whose place of assignment is not Brussels and who do not have place of residence in Brussels are entitled to receive a daily allowance which shall correspond to daily subsistence allowance set for Belgium under Article 13 of Annex VII to the Staff Regulations.

3.   The daily subsistence allowance shall be the same as the daily subsistence allowance set for statutory staff in the Commission Decision C(2025) 2495 on the general provisions for implementing Articles 11, 12 and 13 of Annex VII to the Staff Regulations of Officials and authorised travel. The modalities and the procedure to be followed are established by the Traineeships Office.

1.   Upon submission of proof of recognised disability, issued by a competent national authority, trainees with disabilities are eligible for a supplementary allowance of up to 50 % of the monthly grant. The procedure to claim this allowance shall be published on the Traineeships Office’s website.

2.   In exceptional and duly justified cases (e.g. personal assistant), additional financial support may be granted. However, the monthly grant, disability allowance and additional financial support shall not exceed the equivalent of two monthly grants.

1.   The Commission departments shall provide reasonable accommodation for trainees with a disability as recognised by a disability certificate issued by a competent national authority.

2.   Reasonable accommodation shall mean appropriate measures, where needed, to enable a trainee with a disability to have access to and participate in the Blue Book traineeship programme, unless such measures would impose a disproportionate burden on the Commission.

1.   Commission Decision C(2005) 458 on rules governing the official traineeships scheme of the European Commission, Commission Decision C(2007) 1221 on the fixing of the amount of the grant to trainees under the official traineeship scheme of the European Commission are repealed.

2.   Traineeships for which the application process started before the adoption of this Decision shall continue to be governed by the Decisions mentioned in paragraph 1.