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European Commission Blue Book Traineeship Programme 2024

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by Impactpool

The European Commission proposes 2 types of traineeship: an Administrative Traineeship or a Translation Traineeship with the Directorate-General for Translation (DGT).

The traineeship programme is open to all eligible candidates whatever their citizenship, regardless of their sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, religion or belief, membership of a national minority, disability, age or sexual orientation. 
You can find more about equal opportunities on this page.

Trainees work all over the European Commission, its services and agencies, mostly in Brussels, but also in Luxembourg and elsewhere across the European Union.

Subsequent career opportunities may vary between these different entities.

The nature of your work will depend on the service you are assigned to.

You may, for example, work in the field of competition law, human resources, environmental policy, translation, etc.

 

Registration for the October 2024 session will open on February 19, 2024, at 10:00 a.m. CET

  • Beginning of March to the end of July
  • Beginning of October to the end of February the following year
  • The living allowance for the traineeship sessions is about €1.376,89 per month.

What does a trainee's daily work consist of?

  • Attending and organising meetings, working groups, and public hearings
  • Researching, drafting and editing documentation – including reports and consultations
  • Answering citizens’ inquiries
  • Supporting the management of projects
  • Translating, revising translations or researching terminology

Who can apply

Subject to eligibility criteria, the traineeship is open to all EU citizens, regardless of age. A limited number of places are also allocated to non-EU nationals.

 

The traineeship programme is open to university graduates who:

  1. have completed a standard 3-year higher education degree (minimum EQF 6 level), corresponding to a complete Bachelor’s cycle, or equivalent. Only if you have a certificate or official confirmation from your university that you have such a degree will you be eligible to apply.

    You will have to provide the following documents:
  2. have no prior work experience of any kind, in excess of 6 weeks in any EU institution, body or agency, delegation, with Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), or Advocates General at the Court of Justice of the European Union (EUCJ)
     
  3. have a very good knowledge of languages:
  • For the administrative traineeship – you must have a very good knowledge of two EU official languages, one of which must be a working language: English, French or German at C1 or C2 level as per the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages and a second one at B2 level at least as per the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.
    For non-EU nationals, only one procedural language is required at C1 or C2 level.
  • For the translation traineeship in the Directorate-General for Translation (DGT) - you must be able to translate into your main/target language (normally your mother tongue), from two other official EU languages (‘source languages’*).:
    • your main/target language must be one of the official EU languages
    • your first source language for translation must be a working language of the EU: English, French or German
    • your second source language can be any of the official EU languages with at least B2-level proficiency

 

The official languages of the European Union are Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish.

The working languages of the European Commission are English, French and German.

 

Trainees' testimonials

 

Learn More and Apply