Media: European Commission to expand defence, digital departments’ staff

The European Commission is set to increase staffing in its Directorate-General for Defence Industry and Space (DG DEFIS) and its Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CONNECT), POLITICO reports, citing sources.

According to the four EU officials, the defence department will receive additional personnel and potentially a new senior official responsible for distributing loans under the EU’s SAFE militarisation programme.

The Commission also plans to expand its overall workforce by around 2,400 employees under the next long-term EU budget to support defence and security-related tasks.

The planned changes, which officials said would be announced this week, form part of an annual exercise in which around one percent of European Commission staff—about 330 employees out of a total workforce of roughly 33,000—are reassigned internally to departments under particular pressure.

However, these staffing adjustments do not indicate an expansion in hiring at the Commission. On the contrary, they reflect efforts to streamline the EU executive and improve efficiency, following an overall reduction in staff between 2014 and 2024.

By Jeyhun Aghazada