Don’t cry for Commission’s HR chief - Souka

Don’t cry for Commission’s HR chief

Staff didn’t think of Irène Souka as their defender — they saw her as the president’s enforcer.

By TIM KING 1/29/20, 5:23 PM CET Updated 2/3/20, 4:53 AM CET

Irène Souka’s chief complaint is that she was left hanging | Etienne Ansotte/European Union

It would be an extraordinary achievement if Irène Souka, who in her 11 years as head of the European Commission’s human resources department built a reputation for the merciless execution of her political masters’ wishes, were to garner sympathy for the brutality of her own departure.

It would be a performance on a par with Theresa May shedding a tear outside Downing Street after setting the terms for an undeliverable Brexit, throwing away a parliamentary majority, and tearing apart her own party.

With a similar degree of chutzpah, albeit to a smaller audience, Souka laments her treatment at the hands of Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the Commission, because her decades-long Commission career has been brought to an abrupt and unceremonious end.

As revealed in POLITICO Brussels Playbook, in a move of quite delicious irony, Souka sent an email on Tuesday to the entire human resources department announcing her departure and attaching a copy of her complaint to von der Leyen’s office.

The vast majority of Commission staff never thought of Souka as their defender: They thought of her as the president’s enforcer.

“In 40 years in the Commission, including almost 11 years as Director-General of DG HR, I have never come across a situation managed in quite this way,” she wrote to Björn Seibert, von der Leyen's chief of staff. “If what we have been experiencing in DG HR is a sample of [the new Commission’s] fresh approach, it is my professional advice to reconsider.”

Souka’s chief complaint is that she was left hanging, not knowing whether her employment with the Commission (she is past retirement age) would be extended again and, if so, for how long.

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“One of the fundamental values of the HR policies we have espoused is ensuring that people are informed in time. It is a question of common civility and of common decency,” said Souka, while conveniently forgetting that common civility doesn’t usually involve copying your email fights with the Commission president to everyone in your department.

To savor the degree of self-exculpation underlying this exchange, and to appreciate the quantities of karma involved, outsiders might need reminding of some features of Souka's career.

The commissioners prolonged Souka's employment during the same meeting that promoted Martin Selmayr, chief of staff of then-President Jean-Claude Juncker | Patrick Seeger/EPA-EFE

Souka’s retirement from the Commission had already been deferred and her reign over the human resources department prolonged. To keep a director general in post beyond the age of 65 requires the approval of the College of Commissioners. In February 2018, the commissioners prolonged her employment and that of her husband, Dominique Ristori, the director general for energy.

Perhaps coincidentally, this was the same meeting of commissioners that at 20 minutes’ notice promoted Martin Selmayr, chief of staff of then Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, to the post of Commission secretary-general (in a procedure roundly condemned by the European Parliament and later by the European ombudsman).

A notable feature of Selmayr’s promotion to the most powerful permanent official was that the commissioners didn’t even know there was a vacancy for the post of secretary-general until they had appointed Selmayr as deputy secretary-general (he made the leap from one job to the other within the course of the same meeting). Possibly this was not what Souka was alluding to when she claimed that one of the fundamental values of her HR policies was ensuring that people are informed in time.

A subsequent report into the episode by the ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, makes clear how heavily Souka was involved in distorting the Commission’s rules on senior appointments to ensure that Selmayr’s route to the top job was cleared of all obstacles. As director general of human resources, she was a permanent member of the Consultative Committee on Appointments that evaluates and shortlists candidates for senior Commission jobs. The ombudsman concluded that the CCA did not follow its own rules of procedure — which Souka might reasonably have been expected to uphold. The ombudsman enumerates several other ways in which the process was flawed. In sum, the botched Selmayr promotion destroyed the credibility of human resources policy during the Juncker Commission.

Given Souka’s Greek origins, the temptation to make comparisons with classical drama must be resisted. Nonetheless, there is an element of proto-tragedy about the parting email in which she rails against her superiors. The distinguishing feature of her career was that she made herself useful, even indispensable, to those above her. Even those who saw her faults would acknowledge that she delivered for her political masters: She did their bidding; she gave them what she wanted. In the jargon of human resources, she was adept at “managing up.”

Irène Souka clung to a vision of loyalty to the European project, which she shared with Selmayr. It was not enough to be competent; you had to be a true believer.

Yet, in the end, she had no purchase over the new political regime.

There is, however, something incongruous about Souka seeking at the last to cast herself as the defender of the little people, the staff of her department. The vast majority of Commission staff never thought of Souka as their defender: They thought of her as the president’s enforcer. She was feared by many senior managers, several of whom found their Commission careers brought to a premature end, being either defenestrated or — perhaps more humiliatingly — sidelined. The latter will be surprised by her appeal to civility and decency. So too will those many humble contract agents who got within days of the end of their contracts before they knew whether those contracts would be renewed.

Souka was at least consistent in deriding “a fresh approach.” She did her best to blunt, if not thwart, various attempts at modernization. She was not a fan of the European Personnel Selection Office, established in 2002 as part of reforms pushed through by Neil Kinnock, who was at that time one of the U.K.'s European commissioners, and its new approach to recruitment. She clung to a vision of loyalty to the European project, which she shared with Selmayr. It was not enough to be competent; you had to be a true believer.

As a consequence, she played fast and loose with procedures: The end justified the means. She and Selmayr turned the clock back on the post-1999 policy of rotating senior managers every five to seven years — witness her own 11-year tenure in the position of head of human resources — yet felt no qualms about introducing a policy of rotating middle managers. The Juncker Commission made some progress in promoting women in middle management, but the Selmayr appointment exposed the commitment to women’s equality as skin-deep.

Given her record, it’s hard to see why Johannes Hahn, the commissioner who now has responsibility for the Commission’s administration and human resources, initially offered her a further extension to her employment. To prolong Souka’s grip on human resources would be to send the wrong message about the new Commission’s intentions. Belatedly, von der Leyen’s team seems to have wised up.

Souka may have been badly handled, but her immediate departure is the right outcome. Where she sees epic betrayal, others will see poetic justice.

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