Meeting Katja with Paquet - and Axel (husband Katja) - comment Social Media

HR was there with him although he didn't seemingly know her either and she was not introduced although we all needed to wait in the Secretariat for 5 minutes or so.

JEP handled the situation well although Axel says that Il avait l'air embêté. He summarized my situation from his point of view and asked then me to complete. I mentioned also you. He said indeed the situation was not satisfactory neither for the DG nor for me especially since he had heard I was someone with an excellent reputation. He said he had counted on my transfer to DG EMPL and therefore had not reacted earlier. According to him my medical part-time plays against my transfer to another DG and therefore the solution needs to come from inside (his Directorate). (Do not know why only his Directorate.) He also said medical part-time does not allow checks by the Medical service (this is not true); I said I didn't have any checks during the first two months of sick leave either.

He said in his Directorate what was left apart from geo units were D5 and D6. The latter (your unit) he didn't even suggest. D5, Morten's unit on Regional programmes, could be an option, especially civil society. I said in that case I would prefer the regional cooperation part, because I would detect too many problems for example with the contract with UNICEF they are about to sign. I flagged my preferred option, Marta. Not sure he entirely liked that, it came as a sort of surprise. He even asked how I had thought about that and expressed somewhat a concern that this would also be linked to DI. He was a priori fine with that but said would need to check with Danielsson.

He said they would decide next week and my transfer would be effective from 1 June.

I also referred to the issue. He said he had read the note on Lessons learnt from RO. I gave it to him, too, along with my CV and CDR. On the other hand he interestingly said that he saw some opening for ICA, although he remembered very well Verheugen's decision to put on hold accession negotiations until these issues were solved. He also had this myth of orphans. (I think in your note one sub-title should be about the myth of orphans, because people don't understand.) At the same time he was less amused (he said he was not aware) when I said we were financing IPA projects in ME which contributed to children leaving the country through ICA. In the end he asked me about UNCRC and why JUST thinks the situation has evolved.

In general Axel kept his calm, but opened the discussion by saying that the COM had changed compared to the old times. He also said the situation should be solved soon; it's not normal he needs to talk to his cousin Gilles or to Reynders. As regards your case JEP said it was much more complicated and he would talk to you. Axel said that everything was already known on social media anyway. JEP was not too amused with that remark.