THE COMMUNITY FISHERIES CONTROL AGENCY - CFCA - IS A EUROPEAN UNION BODY ESTABLISHED IN 2005 TO ORGANISE OPERATIONAL COORDINATION OF FISHERIES CONTROL AND INSPECTION ACTIVITIES BY THE MEMBER STATES AND TO ASSIST THEM TO COOPERATE SO AS TO COMPLY WITH THE RULES OF THE COMMON FISHERIES POLICY IN ORDER TO ENSURE ITS EFFECTIVE AND UNIFORM APPLICATION.

The Agency follows the personnel policy of the Staff Regulations applicable to European Institutions and Bodies. The Council has adopted new Staff Regulations on 22 March 2004. The successful candidates will be offered a post on the basis of these Staff Regulations.

The CFCA is organising selection procedures with a view to drawing up a reserve list of a maximum of 6 candidates for the following position:

• CFCA - CA - FG II - 1001 - SECRETARY

The Agency will welcome applications from highly motivated candidates to participate in the development of CFCA.

Candidates are recruited on the condition they have full rights as a citizen. Candidates must have fulfilled any obligations imposed on them by laws concerning military service and meet the character requirements for the duties involved.

The CFCA has an independent and separate recruitment process from other EU institutions or other EU agencies.

In its recruitment, the CFCA only considers applications relating to positions which have been advertised, which means that unsolicited applications are not processed, with a view to maintain equal treatment of applicants.

1. Conditions of employment

The successful applicants will be appointed as Contract Agents Staff members of CFCA, according to the provisions of Article 3a, title I of the Conditions of Employment of other servants of the European Communities (CEOS).

The successful candidates will be recruited in the grade mentioned in the title of offered position.

Recruitment follows the rules and practices of EU Institutions and bodies and successful candidates are offered:

• one-year renewable contracts as Contract Agents.

The place of employment is Vigo, Spain.

2. General conditions for applications

Candidates may apply only where meeting the following criteria for consideration of their application:

A. Conditions

You must be a national of one of the Member States of the European Union or of Iceland or Norway.

You must be entitled to your full rights as a citizen.

You must have fulfilled the obligations imposed on you by the laws concerning military service.

You must meet the character requirements relating to the position you apply for.

You must submit a completed application for each post applied for.

Candidates may apply in any of the official languages of the European Community, but it would be helpful to apply in English in order to facilitate the selection process, when the Agency follows a practise of using English as working language. However candidates are also requested to state their educational qualifications and positions held in the language of origin.

The Agency is an equal opportunity employer and accepts applications without discrimination on the grounds of age, race, political and/or religious beliefs, sex or sexual orientation, marital and/or family status and regardless any kind of disability.

If you are invited to an interview, you will be asked to submit supporting documents to prove the information provided in your application.

B. Submission of applications

Each application shall contain the following documents:

1. A detailed curriculum vitae in European format (that can be obtained at the following address:
   http://europass.cedefop.europa.eu/europass/home/vernav/Europasss+Documents/Europass+CV.csp
   


2. A duly completed and signed declaration of honour ( ~87 Kb),
   


3. A motivation letter of 2 pages maximum including a clear mention of the post applied for and of your address for correspondence and for invitation to interview.

These three documents should be sent by electronic mail only to:

cfca-vacancies-ca@cfca.europa.eu

Please mention in the subject line your last name followed by the position reference: FAMILY NAME - CFCA-CA-XX-XXX

Please, note that only complete applications containing the above mentioned documents and information required will be taken into account.

Deadline for sending your application is: 15 June 2010

3. Selection procedure

A. Selection

A selection board is set up for the selection procedure. The principle of confidentiality is enshrined in Article 6 of Annex III to the Staff Regulations, which states that the proceedings of the selection board must be secret. It works in two ways: first, it imposes obligations to ensure equal treatment for candidates; and second, it seeks to protect the selection board to ensure that its decisions are totally impartial.

The selection board adheres strictly to the conditions of admissions laid down in the publication notice when deciding whether or not candidates are to be admitted. Candidates admitted to a previous selection procedure will not be automatically eligible.

Candidates are strictly forbidden to make any contact with the members of the selection board, either directly or indirectly. Any infringement of this rule will lead to disqualification from the selection procedure.

Should the selection board discover at any stage in the procedure that the candidate does not meet one or more of the general or special conditions for admission to the selection procedure or that the information on the application form does not correspond with the supporting documents, the candidate will be disqualified.

The selection board decides on those candidates who are admitted to the selection procedure in accordance with the requirements as specified in the publication notice. The applications of the candidates admitted to the selection procedure are reviewed and the selection board decides on those candidates who are invited to attend for interview. The interviewees will be asked to undergo a written test consisting of the following components: General aptitudes and language abilities to the extent necessary for the performance of the duties, knowledge on European integration, the institutions and the Agency and specific competencies with reference to the profile, assessing the quality of writing style and presentation. Following the interviews, which are conducted by the selection board, the selection board decides which candidates will be placed on the reserve list.

B. Reserve list and recruitment

Each candidate will be informed by letter whether or not he/she has been placed on the reserve list. The validity of the reserve list is up to 2 years from the date of the letter informing the candidate and may be extended. Therefore candidates whose name will be put on a reserve list could be offered a contract during this period of time. Candidates should note that inclusion on the reserve list does not guarantee appointment. The recruitment procedure is as follows: as and when funds become available, candidates on the reserve list will be considered and the reserve list will be drawn on to fill vacancies. If a letter of intention is issued, the candidate must undergo a compulsory medical examination to establish that he/she meets the standard of physical fitness necessary to perform the duties involved and the candidate must provide original or certified copies of all relevant documents.

It should be noted that the retirement age for staff is:

• either automatically at the age of 65 years;



• or, at the staff member's own request, at the age of 63 years or where the staff member is between 55 and 63 years of age and satisfies, as specified in the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants, the requirements for immediate payment of a pension.

Selected candidates will be offered a one-year renewable contract in accordance with the Conditions of employment of other servants of the European Communities (Official Journal of the European Communities No L 56 of 4 March 1968 and successive amendments).

Successful candidates who are recruited undergo an initial probation period of 6 months.

C. Pay and welfare benefits

The pay of staff members consists of a basic salary, to be weighted to compensate the Vigo cost of living and of additional allowances and deductions.

Basic Salary: There is a basic salary scale for each function group, divided into a number of grade and steps. Staff members progress automatically to the next step every two years.

Contract Agents at CFCA shall be appointed to the Function Group set out in the notice of the selection procedure they have passed. The basic monthly starting salary for the lowest grade of Function Group II is 1.883,05 (figures in Euro valid as of 1 January 2010 not including allowances) A Contract Agent shall be recruited at the first step of the grade. For the classification into grade, any duly certified professional activity connected with one of CFCA's areas of activity shall be taken into account. Any given period may be counted only once

Allowances: In addition to their basic salary, staff members may be entitled to various allowances, in particular an expatriation or foreign residence allowance (depending whether the candidate has left his/her Member State to take up employment with the CFCA), and family allowances (depending on personal circumstances): household allowance, dependent child allowance, preschool allowance, education allowance.

Deductions: Staff pays a Community tax at source and deductions are also made for medical insurance, pensions and unemployment insurance. Salaries are exempt from national tax.

Under certain circumstances, in particular where staff members are obliged to change their place of residence in order to take up employment, the Agency may also reimburse various expenses incurred on recruitment, notably removal expenses.

Additional information can be obtained from the web site of the CFCA Agency. Furthermore, the following link gives you direct access to the Staff Regulations: http://ec.europa.eu/civil_service/docs/toc100_en.pdf. 

Important

Please, take note that a binding commitment can only be made after verification of all conditions and will take the form of a contract signed by the Executive Director.

Please note that the selection process may take some time to be completed and that no information will be released during this period. Once a selection process has been completed, its status will be displayed on the web site of CFCA.

D. Data Protection

Any personal data provided by the Applicant shall be processed pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 45/2001 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data by the Community institutions and bodies and on the free movements of such data. It shall be processed solely for the purposes of the recruitment exercise. The Applicant shall have the right of access to his/her personal data and the right to rectify data relating to the contact details contained in his/her application that is inaccurate or incomplete at any time during the selection procedure. However, the Applicant can rectify data relating to admissibility criteria only until the closing date of the submission of applications. Should the Applicant have any queries concerning the processing of his/her personal data, (s)he shall address them to the Controller of the data, Head of Unit Resources.

The Applicant shall have right of recourse at any time to the European Data Protection Supervisor (www.edps.europa.eu).

4. Specific requirements and details of positions offered

Job description

Overall purpose:

To provide secretarial and administrative support to the Head of Unit B - Capacity building, and to assist the section of the Agency in charge of planning and programming the tasks related to projects managed in the Unit, thus contributing to achieve the objectives of the work programmes for the unit and the general objectives of the CFCA.

Functions and Duties:

Clerical and secretarial tasks, office management, preparation, and evaluation of dossiers in the respective domain with financial impact, execution and procedures and control of formalities, and other equivalent tasks. The tasks are performed under the supervision of temporary staff. The jobholder reports to the Head of Unit B - Capacity Building, and is responsible in particular for:

• Assisting the Head of Unit for ensuring internal coordination between the different sections of Unit;
• Ensuring full implementation of procedures and internal rules to be applied in accordance to CFCA general policy and internal defined procedures;
• Monitoring the budget execution of projects and operations of the Unit;
• Assisting in the preparation of meetings, organisation of missions including hotel reservations, transport, reimbursement of travel expenses and reporting on timelines and follow up of missions and meetings with the Unit involved;
• Supporting the delivery of information services and archiving, in response to the needs of the users and monitoring reports and archives of operations of the Unit;
• Drafting, correcting, proofreading, copying or typing a variety of material in draft or final form including correspondence, reports, meeting documents, minutes, statistical or tabular data, letters, memoranda, etc.;
• Preparing and updating lists, files and databases related to work of the assigned team ensuring that the information is correct and current, maintaining mailing lists, simple bibliographies or similar material;
• Organisation of appointments and meetings for the Head of Unit or members of the assigned team, making and receiving internal and external telephone calls, and receiving and assisting office visitors;
• Contributing to the efficient and smooth functioning of the office including making proposals for improvement;
• Any other administrative duties deemed beneficial to the Agency.

The jobholder will work in the premises of the Agency in Vigo, Spain. The duties are being performed in a multinational environment, under the Staff regulations and other frameworks of the Community legislation. The job may include missions abroad. The main working language of the Agency is English.

Qualifications and experience required

A. Eligibility criteria

• A level of secondary education attested by a diploma giving access to post-secondary education or a level of post secondary education of an official duration of three years attested by a diploma;
• At least 3 years of professional experience in a domain relevant to the abovementioned duties;
• Thorough knowledge of English and at least another official language of the European Union.

B. Selection criteria

Essential:

• Excellent coordination and organisational skills;
• Excellent oral and written communication and language skills;
• Commitment to demonstrate and promote high quality service standards;
• Excellent knowledge of MS Office software;
• Ability to draft notes and reports;
• Experience of filing methods and record management;
• Good interpersonal skills, discretion and tact.

Advantageous:

• Sound knowledge of a third EU language, preferably Spanish,
• Sound knowledge or willingness to learn financial procedures applicable in the Agency,
• Knowledge of the Common Fisheries Policy,
• Working experience in EU Institutions and/or bodies.