EU officials receive 'bureaucracy killer' awards 

Administrative Affairs Commissioner Siim Kallas handed out the awards on 30 April at an event organised by EuReforme, a group of staffers looking to improve the way the Commission works.

New ideas, rewarded with a 'Caterpillar Award', include the simplification of the staff-evaluation system with the most popular proposal going to the extension of so-called 360° evaluations already in place for director-generals and directors in the Commission's middle management.

"This means that heads of units would be assessed not only by their bosses but also by their staff and perhaps even by outsiders with whom they interact," said Alexander Riedel, a member of EuReforme's co-ordination committee.

Another idea was to abolish paper forms in favour of an electronic system for documents requiring approval from several officials. "In most DGs, if you need your boss to approve something, you have to send it to him or her in a form, often in duplicate, and with many other people on the list.  If he or she wants to change something, it gets sent back by internal mail. But in the electronic age, surely we can do all this quicker and more efficiently,” said Stephen Collins, president of EuReforme.

Other prizes, called 'Butterfly Awards', were given out to ideas that have already been implemented. They include the extension of a network of secretaries to exchange information and best practice to all assistants in the Commission.

"We tend to complain about all the things that don't work properly. Nevertheless, some good ideas have been implemented in recent years, helping to make us more effective and efficient," Collins said.

"With this event EuReforme wants to promote staff to propose improvements, but also to give the message to 'the outside' that EC staff is committed to do a good job, on behalf of the European citizens, of the taxpayers."