755 apply for job in MEPs office

MEP Chris Davies

A job vacancy in the office of a Rochdale Euro-MP attracted 755 applications in just seven days.

Liberal Democrat MEP Chris Davies needed to appoint at short notice a new parliamentary assistant to work in Brussels, and says he was overwhelmed by the response.

"The quality of the people who applied was very high indeed, and I am struck by the huge number of young people who are now working in a wide range of organisations for free or for expenses-only in order to gain experience.

"It's a practice that could be seen as a type of exploitation, but it's becoming a necessity for anyone who wants to get to the front in the competition for jobs of this kind."

Applications for the £22,000* pa job were invited from people of any country so long as they could speak English. The vacancy was eventually filled by a young French woman who is a graduate of both Lancaster and Manchester Universities.

Davies employs three full time staff at his North West office in Stockport, and one to assist him in his legislative work in the European Parliament. He has never employed anyone related to him.

He said: "All of the candidates I interviewed said they loved working in Brussels alongside people from so many different countries. It's a sentiment I share about work in the European Parliament.

"Faced with such a huge choice the final selection was painfully difficult to make. Over the past ten years I have employed British, Italian, Greek and Portuguese assistants, all of them excellent and who have moved on to greater things. I'm glad this time to have been able to appoint someone of a different nationality yet who has lived for five years in the North West of England."