Placement report

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Placement report

Name: Mark van Kranenburg

Student number: 2720833

Placement organization: Dutch Permanent Representation to the EU in Brussels

Placement department: Algemene Bestuursdienst

Placement duration: March – July 2020

Placement supervisor: Twan van Erp

RUG supervisor: Bastiaan Aardema

Date: 24 August 2020

Number of words: 5,2461

1_{This number includes the introduction, main body, conclusion and headings. It excludes the table of contents,}

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Introduction

This report details my experiences as an intern at the ‘Algemene Bestuursdienst’ department at the Dutch Permanent Representation to the EU in Brussels from March until July 2020. Unsurprisingly, the COVID-19 lockdown had a considerable impact on my internship as I worked a lot from home, but I still enjoyed it a lot. Therefore, it is with deep and sincere gratitude to my colleagues, especially my supervisor Twan van Erp, and my contact person at the University of Groningen, Bastiaan Aardema, that I completed this internship.

This report contains three parts: before, during and after. In ‘Before’, I will explain my years-long search for an internship, the rationale behind and process of the application for the ABD department as well as my preparations between my selection and the actual start of my internship. In ‘During’, I will detail my internship activities, the role of feedback, my personal circumstances and learning process. The chapter ‘After’ will discuss whether my expectations were met, how the internship is connected to the MA degree in IR and what the future holds. (Spoiler alert: because of the maternity leave of one of my colleagues, I will return to the department in September and keep working there until December, so while my internship is over, my time in Brussels is not yet.) The conclusion will offer a few tips for possible future interns at my placement.

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Before

As a BA and MA student of International Relations, I always wanted to work at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs or at an international organization, which is why I wanted to do an internship in that areas as well. Almost immediately after I started my master’s in IR in September 2017, I began to apply for internships all over the world on behalf of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs via the website www.werkenvoorinternationaleorganisaties.nl, but these attempts were not successful. I began to realize that I should explore more options and asked former bosses at companies where I did summer holiday jobs whether I could do an internship at their enterprise. In the spring of 2018, one of them accepted me for an internship. The placement plan had already been completed and approved by the placement team at the University of Groningen, when the company suddenly ended all communication with me. As the academic year 2018-2019 was approaching without any prospect of an internship, I decided to do a board year at Erasmus Student Network The Netherlands to keep myself busy and give myself more time to find an internship. I kept applying for internships via the website mentioned earlier. In the meantime, I had heard from former fellow IR students that in order to end up working at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (which I wanted), interning at the actual Ministry in The Hague or a nearby location was a better stepping stone than interning at a post far away from the ‘epicentre’ of Dutch diplomacy. That is why I got increasingly interested in internships at the Ministry in The Hague or at the Permanent Representation to the EU (PVEU) in Brussels.

In November 2019, I saw another internship vacancy on the website mentioned above. It was an internship at the ‘Algemene Bestuursdienst’ department (ABD) at the PVEU. As will be outlined in further detail in the next chapter, the main idea of the department is to support and enlarge the representation of Dutch nationals in the EU. That is why my email signature at the internship formulated my position as ‘Intern Dutch Staff Presence in the EU’. I would have gladly interned at any other department at the PVEU, but the ABD stood out for a specific reason. Many other internships at the PVEU were linked to a specific Dutch Ministry in The Hague, for instance Economic Affairs and Climate Policy (EZK) or Justice and Security (JV). Since the ABD department was not linked to a very specific issue or Ministry, the internship would give me a broader view on both the Dutch Ministries and the EU as a whole, as will be further

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clarified in terms of END in the next chapter. Put briefly, the reason I applied for the internship at the ABD department was the broader view I expected to get vis-à-vis internships at other departments at the PVEU.

After I had applied by emailing my motivation letter and CV to the PVEU, I was invited by telephone for a Skype interview with Twan van Erp, my eventual internship supervisor. During the interview, we discussed the education and work items on my CV and I was told that two other candidates had also been shortlisted. Twan asked me what goals I would pursue if accepted for the internship and I mentioned the three listed in my eventual placement plan: gaining more knowledge of the EU and its institutions, sharpening my hard and soft skills and stepping out of my comfort zone into a new working and living environment. Twan also asked me what I thought would set me apart from the other candidates. I replied that in summer jobs, committees and my board year, I had always welcomed feedback and tried to implement it afterwards. I pledged that, if selected, I would never shy away from receiving feedback and in that way seek to improve myself. Two days later, I was informed via email that they offered me the internship at the ABD department. I breathed a sigh of relief, because after a two-year search, I had finally been accepted for an internship.

In terms of preparing for the internship, I did three main things. Firstly, I filed all the necessary paperwork, such as the placement plan and the placement contract. The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs also requested me to read some protocols and register as an intern online. I also terminated the contract I had as a customer service employee on behalf of the Dutch bank ING. I had worked a lot over the course of the first semester of 2019/2020 and would get both a salary and a rent allowance from the PVEU, so I did not have to worry about finances.

Secondly, aside from the formalities, I kept in touch with my predecessor and asked for tips. In accordance with his advice, I read up on the procedures for traineeships at the European Commission and the European Parliament, because I would have to assist Dutch applicants for these traineeships at the ABD department. This information was very useful to know in advance, but looking back, I wish I had done more research. As I will discuss later, I was not familiar with the various ways in which people can get a non-traineeship job in the EU. I could have done more online readings in advance to be better informed about this.

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Thirdly, I visited Brussels approximately two weeks before my internship started. I called at the Permanent Representation, where I met my predecessor and Twan for the first time. I could take over my predecessor’s room, so my visit also enabled me to already drop off some belongings I would need in Brussels. My predecessor was very enthusiastic about the internship and told nice stories about having dinner with colleagues, spending time with fellow interns at the PVEU and using the opportunity to build a network in Brussels. I expected that if I did my internship properly, I would reach the three goals identified earlier and at the same time enjoy every single bit of it. I could not wait to start.

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During

In this chapter, I will detail my actual internship term (March – July 2020). First, I will briefly introduce the workplace. Then, I will list my activities. Afterwards, I will describe the feedback as well as my personal circumstances. Finally, my learning process will summarize this chapter.

Workplace

As previewed in the introduction, the ABD is not a typical department at the PVEU. The different Ministries of the Dutch state each have their own department. That is why one could argue that the PVEU is in a way ‘The Hague in mini size’. In addition to these departments, there are departments like ‘European Parliament’, ‘Press and Communication’ and the ABD. With regard to the ABD, I already mentioned that its primary aim is to support and enlarge the representation of Dutch nationals across the EU institutions. Hence, we kept in touch with our contact persons at EU institutions on the one hand and our contacts in The Hague on the other. When it comes to The Hague, I worked particularly closely with WerkenbijdeEU, which is the department at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs in The Hague that promotes EU jobs through events and supports candidates for EU positions. Simplistically speaking, it could be said that the ABD in Brussels and WerkenbijdeEU in The Hague are each other’s counterparts. The ABD itself consisted of four persons: my supervisor Twan, Simone, Emmie and me. Even though Twan was my formal supervisor, Simone was practically a co-supervisor, so I could also ask her for advice. Emmie was heavily pregnant and went on to take maternity leave. She was later replaced with Alice and after the summer, I will take over until December.

Activities

As a result of COVID-19, I did not work fulltime. Appendix A provides a rough approximation of my weekly working hours. In terms of the actual activities, I did most of them from home. During the first two weeks of my internships, however, I could still go to the office before the lockdown started. In addition to getting to know other people at the PVEU, including interns at other departments, I could read the transition document and already started doing some basic tasks. These included reading up on how the EU recruits employees other than trainees, setting up a phone call with WerkenbijdeEU to get to know each other and sending emails to

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EU institutions to ask about their number of Dutch trainees. Apart from these one-time activities, I performed recurring tasks, which I will detail below.

1. Vacancies overview

Throughout my internship, I compiled and sent a weekly overview of vacancies at EU institutions and agencies to a mailing list of interested people. (After my first overview, I learned the hard way to use BCC rather than CC for these people.) I had a website list that would lead me to the vacancies of the different organizations. These vacancies were external in that there was no need to participate in a competition selection procedure that applicants for internal administrator jobs have to follow.2_{Compiling the overview was essentially a rather}

easy task that I could easily keep doing during the lockdown, but I still learned a lot from it. Throughout my studies in International Relations, I had learned about the typical EU institutions like the Commission or the Parliament, but I did not know there were so many agencies scattered all across Europe, for example the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. In that way, the vacancy overview task enabled me to get a better picture of the EU.

Apart from merely compiling and sending the weekly overviews, I also followed up on candidates that expressed interest in applying for vacancies. In many cases, these candidates wanted to apply for high-level positions and would therefore be in touch with Twan or Simone, but I still tried to be up-to-date about who was interested in which position. I also proactively told people I had met during my IR studies or board year at Erasmus Student Network about these overviews and asked them if they wanted to be added to the mailing list. The mailing list has grown ever since.

2. (Potential) Commission and Parliament trainees

Something I started doing after the lockdown began was assisting Dutch candidates for Blue Book traineeships at the European Commission starting in October 2020. In essence, this assistance amounted to two things: I provided every candidate with lobby tips and I gave them email addresses of Dutch nationals at the Commission (which we had a database for) that they

2_{For reasons of scope, I will not discuss the different types of contracts in the EU and the relevant procedures in}

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could use in the lobbying process. Of course, I made sure to match the contact persons with the Directorate-Generals (DGs) / units that the candidates were interested in. Candidates often had follow-up questions that I answered, sometimes in consultation with the ABD department and WerkenbijdeEU.

Because of COVID-19, trainees from the March 2020 session were offered the option to prolong their Blue Book traineeship, so as of this writing, it is still unclear whether the candidates I assisted would have a good chance of securing a traineeship or would have to wait until the March 2021 session. I kept in touch with the Traineeships Office in order to be able to update the candidates immediately once the Traineeships Office would have more news, so this task took quite a lot of my time. Through it all, I got to know a lot more DGs and their units, which also triggered my interest in a Blue Book traineeship of my own for my MA degree in Middle Eastern Studies.

In June 2020, the European Parliament opened the application round for their Schuman traineeships. Blue Book candidates apply for a traineeship and then lobby the DGs they are interested in, but Schuman candidates have to apply for specific traineeship spots and, therefore, do not really have to lobby. That is why I only provided them with relevant Dutch contact persons at the units they applied for. As of this writing, the selection of Schuman trainees has already been made. Thanks to this smoothness, it took me less time than the Blue Book assistance. Like the Blue Book, I got to know more DGs and units of the European Parliament, which helped me think of the Parliament as a far more detailed institution rather than a ‘black box’ monolithic organization.

In addition to assisting potential EU trainees, I was also engaging with current ones. In normal circumstances, we would have organized a networking event for them at the PVEU in March/April 2020, but COVID-19 cancelled all events we had in mind. To still give them the possibility to interact with each other and with us, we organized an online event we them. We invited two Dutch nationals at the European Commission to talk about their experiences as former Blue Book trainees and current employees. I was the moderator of the online event and I enjoyed watching them all interact with each other. We followed up on this by creating a WhatsApp group and inviting them to make individual appointments with us at the PVEU, which some of them ended up doing. All in all, it gave me more experience in online event planning and management and I got positive feedback from attendees about the way I moderated it.

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3. END paper

One of the contract types of EU employees is that of the Experts Nationals Detachés (END), civil servants of national member states who can work at the EU in secondment for a term of up to 4 years. In light of our long-term vision to enlarge the representation of Dutch nationals at the EU, the ABD department wanted to improve the Dutch END presence and streamline our policy across the Dutch Ministries. That is why I asked our contact persons at the Ministries for their input. We wanted to know specifically how HR and budget issues were incorporated into the respective END strategies of the Ministries, assuming they had an END strategy at all. The idea was that I would write a paper about this with recommendations that we could propose to the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations.

Given this was a purely administrative task, I could still do this during the lockdown. Still, it was harder than I thought it would be. The reason is that the same questions that I asked about HR and budget led to very different answers across the Ministries, which made it harder to draw straightforward conclusions. As a matter of fact, some Ministries did not really answer the specific questions as such and just sent me a lengthy document about their overall detachment / internationalization strategy. I would then have to filter out the information I needed. At the office, I would have been able to quickly consult with my ABD colleagues, but working from home during the lockdown, it was harder to do this. At the end of June, I had compiled a first version of the paper that my supervisors gave feedback on for a second version, which I finished in early July. As I will return to the department in September, we will take it from there.

In terms of what I learned from it, it informed me about another way in which people can work at the EU which I was not previously familiar with. It also gave me insights into the different Dutch Ministries and their cooperation with agencies, for instance the collaboration between the Ministry of Finance and ‘De Nederlandsche Bank’ in terms of END. In the introduction, I already argued I saw this interaction with the Ministries as an asset vis-à-vis internships at other PVEU departments. As an intern at the PVEU, it was easy to think of ourselves as mainly working with the EU on the one hand, but writing the END paper made me realize we are also representing the Dutch government in The Hague on the other. In other words, the END paper raised my awareness about our links with both the EU and The Hague. In addition, I would argue that the different sorts of input I received helped me sharpen my reading and writing skills.

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4. Alumni network

In June 2020, when the height of the lockdown was over, I tried to revitalize our alumni network, which consists of former Blue Book and Schuman trainees. I approached a few dozens of them on LinkedIn to add them to our LinkedIn alumni page. In order to enlarge our Dutch representation in the EU, the idea was to encourage the alumni to participate in a competition for an administrator job in the EU, something I myself was unfamiliar with and only learned about at the PVEU. In the LinkedIn group, we promoted upcoming competitions and I also provided information about how to get a short-term job in the EU as contract agents. I was able to triple the number of people in the LinkedIn group, but the level of interaction within the group was lower than I hoped it would be. That is why I do not view this as a completed task, but rather as something I want to keep focusing on upon my return to the PVEU.

5. Assistance

Apart from the one-time activities and four previously mentioned recurring items, I did some minor tasks that could be put under the umbrella of ‘assistance’. For instance, I asked all EU agencies by email for information about their Dutch employees, the results of which I would update in our database. In addition, I attended an online event organized by the European Personnel Selection Office, where all Permanent Representations received information about upcoming competitions, after which I cowrote a summary with Twan for WerkenbijdeEU. For reasons of scope, I will not detail every single thing. What is most important to note is that I sometimes conducted a few small tasks to assist Twan. As explained in the next section, it taught me the importance of good communication within the department.

Feedback

As highlighted earlier, the COVID-19 lockdown cancelled the events we had planned and prevented me from physically communicating with my ABD colleagues. After two weeks at the office, I was locked in my room working from home, a situation that would last for more than two months. We would typically have weekly ABD calls to stay in touch, but I would mostly work by myself during the lockdown. At the time of the midway evaluation, I was in the ongoing process of writing the END paper. Twan had also asked me to get information about

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Dutch employees from EU agencies. For three full weeks, I did not do this. We had not agreed to a specific deadline and as my predecessor had already done the same at the end of his term, I believed I could wait until the end of the internship to make sure this information would be even more up-to-date for the first semester of 2020-2021. As I got no specific reminders, I thought Twan would agree. However, during the midway evaluation (which was overall rather positive), he mentioned three ‘development points’. He wanted to see a higher work pace because of the missing information from EU agencies. He also told me I could be less formal and stiff in, for instance, my (email) communication with others at the PVEU. Thirdly, he mentioned that I should keep our dual link with the EU and The Hague in mind. In terms of the work pace, I told him I would definitely have gathered the information from EU agencies immediately if I had known he would have wanted me to. In short, we had a sort of misunderstanding. What I learned from this midway evaluation was that, apart from the three development points, I should communicate more clearly within the department about to-dos to avoid further misunderstandings. The very next day, I had contacted all EU agencies to gather the missing information and I also made sure to communicate clearly within the department about when I should do what. Moreover, I reminded myself not to be too formal in my communication and kept WerkenbijdeEU in The Hague as up-to-date as I could so as to implement the other development points.

During our final evaluation conversation in July 2020, in which I was offered to replace Emmie from September till December, Twan noted I had improved in terms of the development points and also addressed these items in light of COVID-19. As regards the work pace, he said he understood that the lockdown and the need to work from home had made it harder for me to know when I was expected to do what. He also said that prior interns had had far more chances than I had to interact informally with colleagues in real-time and actually ‘get the feeling’ (which relates to my overly formal communication style), while unlike me, prior interns also had the option to travel with Twan to our contact persons in The Hague (which relates to the tip about keeping both the EU and The Hague in mind). He said my implementation of the feedback showed my growth potential, which would also be an asset upon my return in September. Put briefly, while COVID-19 certainly had an impact on the execution of my tasks, the interaction with and feedback from Twan was very informative and helpful.

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Personal circumstances

In terms of my personal circumstances, I did not have to worry about financial issues or housing. My salary and rent allowance from the PVEU allowed me to live comfortably in a spacious apartment room in the borough Saint-Gilles. Of course, I had a lot more time for myself because of the lockdown, which I used to start a fitness routine, watch Netflix series on my to-watch list and socialize online. The only thing I actually missed was physical interaction with other people, but I reminded myself that we were all in this lockdown together. When the lockdown was gradually lifted and I could meet my colleagues or EU trainees over drinks at a bar again, I appreciated this possibility more than I ever did before. In short, both during and after the lockdown, my personal circumstances were still pretty good.

Learning process

To conclude, my internship enabled me to have both a professional and personal learning process. Professionally, I had not only learned a lot from my activities but also benefited from Twan’s three developments and my own realization that I should communicate more clearly within the ABD department. Personally, the lockdown had enabled me to build up discipline in terms of following a fitness routine, while I also learned to appreciate physical interactions with people even more.

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After

In this chapter, I will first evaluate the expectations mentioned in the introduction. Secondly, the link between my internship and my MA program in IR will be discussed. Thirdly, I will put my internship in a long-term career perspective by sketching what comes next.

Expectations

In the introduction, I stated that I expected to reach the three personal learning objectives and enjoy every bit of it at the same time. Thanks to the informal interaction within the ABD department and to the dinners and drinks with my colleagues, the last goal was absolutely reached.

With respect to the three personal learning objectives, I would argue that I reached them all. In terms of my first objective, I learned a lot more about the EU. Before the internship, I hardly knew anything about the ways in which someone could get a job in the EU. In Brussels, I was very focused on the traineeship programs in the EU, but I also learned about the other functions such as END positions. In addition, I came to realize there are so many EU agencies I had never heard about. It reminded me of what an EU law professor told us in my second BA year: “The EU as such does not exist. It needs an institutional framework.” During my internship, I discovered that this ‘framework’ was far more extensive than I thought.

As regards the second objective, I was able to sharpen my hard and soft skills. The hard skills are mainly exemplified by the END paper versions and the online event for Blue Book and Schuman trainees that I helped organize. An improvement in soft skills was visible after the midway evaluation, when I received the feedback that my communication could be less formal and stiff. Afterwards, I tried ‘not to overdo it’ when I engaged in official work-related communication with colleagues or outsiders such as EU trainees. Twan noted the improvement in our final evaluation conversation and also said the initial overly formal communication was logical given that I had to work alone from home and could not actually get ‘the real feeling’.

With regard to the third objective, my relocation to Brussels and internship at the PVEU was certainly a step out of my comfort zone. I did not know the city and did not have any friends there, but my colleagues at the PVEU, both at the ABD and at other departments,

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helped me feel at home anyway. During my exchange in Glasgow in 2017, I faced a similarly unfamiliar city where I did not know anyone, but I made friends for life nonetheless. Interning at the PVEU enabled me to do the same in Brussels.

Even though I reached all three goals, I do want to note that I view all three of them as a lifelong never-ending process. Firstly, my knowledge of EU history needs some refreshment, because it has been some years since I was academically taught in this. Secondly, due to the cancellation of events because of the lockdown, I wish I would have been able to improve my hard skills more than I have. Thirdly, stepping out of my comfort zone is also something I think I will have to do again and again in life, especially if I end up working on behalf of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and having to be redeployed from time to time.

Link to IR degree

With regard to the connection between the internship and the IR program, I need to distinguish between the BA and the MA program. During the bachelor’s, I took courses in EU politics, history and law, which is of course very relevant for an internship at the PVEU. For instance, I theoretically knew about the relatively low level of Dutch nationals in the EU, but as an intern at the PVEU assisting traineeship candidates and writing the END paper, I was practically trying to contribute to a higher representation. In other words, the internship was a formidable extension of my BA program. Nevertheless, when it comes to the MA program, I have to say that I did the general track of IR, in which the EU hardly came up. The European integration track might have been better suited for the internship.

Future

Because of Emmie’s maternity leave, I am going to work at the PVEU from September until December 2020, when I will be coordinating the applications of Dutch nationals for END positions in the European Commission. During these months, I hope to get connections that may help me secure a Blue Book traineeship of my own, which I could use to complete my MA program in Middle Eastern Studies. What happens afterwards is something I have less ideas about. I do see myself working at the PVEU or at the EU itself in the future, but I would also love to work at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs or at an institution like the UN or NATO. What I do know for sure is that I would love to work in an international environment.

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Conclusion

This conclusion will summarize the report by offering a number of tips for possible future interns at my placement. Below, the tips are complemented by an explanation.

1. Prepare as well as you can.

I learned how important it was to be well-prepared. On the one hand, I benefited from already having visited Brussels, the PVEU and my room two weeks in advance. It facilitated my eventual my relocation to Brussels. On the other hand, as I highlighted earlier, I was not familiar with the various ways in which people can get a job in the EU, while I did know I would have to work on enlarging our representation in the EU. In the end, I was still able to do a job that satisfied my supervisor, but I could have acquired more knowledge about my work activities in advance, which would have saved me some time at the actual placement. In other words, do not think you can be too prepared.

2. Communicate very clearly.

Again, I learned this the ‘bad’ and the ‘good’ way. As discussed in terms of the role of feedback, I had not always been in clear communication with Twan about when I should be doing what, which led to an insufficient work pace. Afterwards, I was able to amend this by checking with Twan and the larger ABD department what should exactly be done by when. It encouraged me to be more productive. Put briefly, do not underestimate the importance of clear communication.

3. Be resilient.

The final tip I can give is to be resilient. When I started, I did not expect I would be spending more than two months working from home in a locked-down city. Personally, it was a very good experience to follow a fitness routine to build up more discipline. Professionally, I welcomed the feedback I got from Twan, which I sought to implement. Before any internship, you can have lots of expectations, but during your actual internship, you really have to ‘take it as it goes’ and make the most of it. When you do that, realize that you can always learn from others and use their input to ascend on your learning curve.

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Appendix A: Working hours

Below, you can see a rough approximation of my weekly working hours. It amounts to a total of 440 hours, which is in accordance with the number mentioned by the supervisor in the final evaluation form.

Working week Days Number of hours worked

1 2 March – 6 March 40 2 9 March – 13 March 40 3 16 March – 20 March 30 4 23 March – 27 March 30 5 30 March – 3 April 15 6 6 April – 10 April 15 7 13 April – 17 April 15 8 20 April – 24 April 15 9 27 April – 1 May 15 10 4 May – 8 May 15 11 11 May – 15 May 15 12 18 May – 22 May 10 13 25 May – 29 May 10 14 1 June – 5 June 10 15 8 June – 12 June 25 16 15 June – 19 June 30 17 22 June – 26 June 20 18 29 June – 3 July 20 19 6 July – 10 July 20 20 13 July – 17 July 20 21 20 July – 24 July 15 22 27 July – 31 July 15

Placement report