My Commission Calvary

Testimonies of harassment at the

European Commission
My Commission Calvary

Testimonies of harassment at
the European Commission

1st Edition
Disclaimer

The facts described in this booklet have been blurred and the
persons involved anonymised; both, the perpetrators and the
targets of harassment. No names of persons are being used,
except for some fictitious names. The gender has been changed
in most cases. No names of the Directorates Generals, in which
the colleagues worked or have been working, are mentioned.
DG HR is only mentioned as a service responsible for the anti-
harassment instruments.

This booklet is for internal use within the Commission.

Image on the cover page: Not yourself anymore

We wish to thank Thomas Duval for preparing the illustrations

for this booklet.
 Table of Contents

The dilemma: stay in the toxic

environment or leave to save your health……………………………………………………….…………7

Not the Europe I imagined when growing up

behind the Iron Curtain ………………………………………..……………………………………….…………15

You have bad chemistry with me..………….……………………………….....................................29

Harassment – a way to force colleagues

into submission…………………………………….………….……………………….……………….………………36

Speak up and you will be punished……………...........................…………………….………………41

I am the Boss!……………………………….…...………………………………………….…………….……………51

My wasted 8 years at the Commission…………………………….……………..…………………………54

When the truth does not matter:

From state dictatorship to a place of fear ………….............................................……………61

When these “little things” are adding up….………………………………….….……………………….73

Once targeted, you cannot escape………………………………………….….……..………………………89

A perfect system to keep everybody in check………………………………….…………………………94

The seven stations of my Via Dolorosa………..…………………………….…...………………………..113

Postface……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..144

About the Harassment Watch Network………………….………………………..…………………..….155

 The dilemma: stay in the toxic environment
or leave to save your health

My name is Sarah. My first experience with the European

Commission was in 2008 when I worked as a trainee. I
liked the international environment of the Commission
very much. Moreover, I had a strong educational
background in EU law and wanted to put my knowledge
into practice. The Commission seemed like the perfect
place to do so. I was fortunate enough to pass a
competition, so this became a real possibility.

I also hold values that the EU represents, like respect for

human dignity and human rights, freedom, democracy,
equality and the rule of law. Therefore, I came to the
Commission with a perspective of serving the European
citizens and protecting them from discrimination.
I joined the Commission as a permanent AD official
almost 10 years later. Already after few months it came to a
first grave incident. I was preparing a meeting with
external stakeholders. However, I was not feeling well and
informed the colleagues that I could not attend it. They
organised a backup for me. Yet, I felt bad that I could not
attend the meeting, which I organised, so I came to it
nevertheless. I warned only one colleague expecting that
he would pass on the message.

7
After the meeting, the colleagues complained to my Head
of Unit about me; he took me to his office, closed the door
and started yelling at me. He was very aggressive in his
words. I did not understand what was happening, as I was
expecting that the colleagues would be happy that I came
to the meeting in spite of the fact that I was not feeling
well. Yet, they made a big fuss about it. I started crying
while the boss was yelling. This was how the harassment
started and this event became the turning point in my
relationship between me, my colleagues and my boss.
From that moment on, my Head of Unit with a support of
certain colleagues started harassing me, while other
members of the unit pretended they could not see
anything. I endured continuous harassment in the unit.
The many forms of harassment that I was put through
included: yelling at me for no apparent reason, not letting
me speak during the unit meetings, pretending not to see
me, raising the voice in a threatening manner as I was
approaching, standing relentlessly at my door and
speaking loudly just to annoy me, interrupting my speech,
speaking over me.

The harassment was sometimes even getting physical. For

instance, my boss would step on me causing me pain, and
instead of apologising, he would laugh in triumph to show
his superiority. Furthermore, I was also given impossible
deadlines, tasks that I was not able to do, as I was new to
the Commission, but was expected to know everything
about all the aspects of work. When I pointed that out,
the Head of Unit said I should ask other colleagues to help
me, but my colleagues refused to help me, saying that it
“was not in their job description to do my job”. My mental
and physical health deteriorated during all this time,
which lasted until the moment I sent an email to my boss
accusing him of mistreatment and asking to be
transferred.
Surprisingly, I initially believed that my Head of Unit was
very happy with my work and would praise me. I think
that some of the colleagues got jealous of it and were
looking for some occasions to put me down. The situation
with the meeting when I was not feeling well was a good
pretext to complain to my Head of Unit.
I believe that there were many factors contributing to the
psychological harassment, e.g., different work ethics and
values of me, my colleagues and my Head of Unit, but also
the fact that I did not have the knowledge or qualifications
to do the specific tasks, which were in a different field of
expertise than mine. I was not well placed in that unit.
The atmosphere in the unit and the whole directorate was
terrible as if everyone was at the verge of some war, or the
war was already taking place. It was clear to me that there
was harassment going on before I entered the service. One
of the former colleagues to this directorate committed
suicide that was apparently caused by psychological
harassment. I think that there were many conflicts
between the colleagues and I felt there was an expectation
that I would be the one to reconcile them. For instance,
my colleagues often attacked one elder colleague, who was

9
regarded as too conservative. I stood up for him because I
saw many times he could barely breath when talking to
them. Eventually, the colleagues stopped harassing him,
but the atmosphere in the directorate was such that
harassment was something that would be “normal” there,
as it was a symptom of a generic dysfunction where some
colleagues were more involved in it and others tried to
avoid being the victims. Space for a new “enemy” opened
up − somebody had to be the next victim.
Initially, I went to complain to the HR unit about the
mistreatment and abuses. However, they advised me to
“play” with my colleagues in some way to avoid the
harassment and to show myself in a good light. I also tried
to change DGs by applying to other services, but they all
said that any transfer was not possible before 2 years in
one service. Then I tried to move internally within the
directorate, but my Head of Unit opposed to it. There was
no solution to my problem.
My Head of Unit was very successful at making other
people think that I am the problem. He could be very
charming to the outside world at one moment and very
cruel at another. It definitely made me question myself
many times until I realised what was going on.

At some point when I was feeling completely hopeless, I

tried to leave the Commission for good, but my family
thought that I should not quit such a good job. My friends
did not understand the situation either. It was strange in
their minds that someone could complain while working
in “Hollywood”: “Nobody complains when they got a job in
Hollywood”. Therefore, I endured it all, while my health
deteriorated. I had a confidential counsellor who helped
me to survive continuous harassment. He wanted to
mediate between me and my boss, but I was too scared to
ask my boss to take part in it, as I thought he would try to
take a revenge on me.
Finally, when my confidential counsellor quit the
Commission, I sent an email to my boss accusing him of
mistreatment, violation of EU values and requesting a
transfer. In a very funny coincidence, the whole “MeToo”
movement started at that time, which made me realise
that harassment may take different forms and that the
problem is much bigger than I initially thought.

Following my transfer, my former Head of Unit blocked

my promotion. My boss was close to the Director General
at that time, so he could block it so arbitrarily. I appealed
against the decision, but I was not successful. There were
no reasons stated in the rejection of my appeal. In one of
the appraisal reports, my boss stated that I was a
“conflictual person”; I assume that was apparently enough
not to grant me the promotion. During all these years of
abuse, my health suffered to the point that the damage is
now irreversible and permanent. The experience at the
Commission destroyed my view of humanity and people. I
understood then why would people commit suicide at the
Commission. You really have little to no options and
possibilities to defend yourself. You need to quit the job to
save your health. It is an option not many can afford, as

11
the poor economic situation does not allow people to find
a new employment. I think that my life will never be the
same again. I am in a bad health, I cannot work anywhere.
I still have suicidal thoughts. Hopefully, the new reality at
work after Covid-19 will be harassment-free. Nevertheless,
if it continues, I would tell my colleagues at the
Commission not to stay in the toxic environment. Join
some help groups at the Commission, like the Harassment
Watch Network. I made a mistake of enduring it for too
long and it took a toll on me. Do not be afraid to go on an
extended sick leave; do not feel guilty about it, as I did
until I had no choice, as my body refused to cooperate.
 Climbing

Climbing
 Not the Europe I imagined when growing up
behind the Iron Curtain

I come from a country in the former Eastern block. I was just

19 years old when the Communist regime fell. My family had
suffered from discrimination in their professional lives
during the dictatorship − I observed all this. I have always
dreamt of living and working in Europe so I attended an
English language secondary school, where I gained very good
foreign language skills. A few years after my graduation from
university, I passed an EU competition and I was appointed
one year later.

I started my career at the Commission in Brussels as a

Contract Agent. I adapted very easily to the work in a
multinational team, and I was proudly representing my
country as part of Europe. I felt respected by my colleagues
for my devotion and my contributions. Unfortunately, the
contract was signed only for three years, and after that I had
to search for another job elsewhere. Three months later, I
got a job offer in a Delegation and I was very happy and
motivated to get it. I moved with my family to my new
working place in a new country.

For the period of my service in the Delegation, I was the only

person responsible for most of the administrative tasks
without backup in a team of two Contract Agents and a
Head of Sector. In the first years, I was very motivated to

15
take over all these tasks and to deliver at my very best,
because I felt the respectful attitude and appreciation of my
line manager. Unfortunately, her assignment ended and she
left back for Brussels. For several months, there was no Head
of our small team and the other colleague in the team had
been working only part time. It was really a tough situation,
with severe understaffing in the team, clearly neglected by
HR and the management. That meant for me a lot of
uncompensated overtime and an excessive pressure to
finalise files in the absence of my colleague. Meanwhile, the
Delegation created a new section and the number of
colleagues overall expanded, and with that my workload
increased even more.

A new Head of Sector was appointed with no experience in

functioning of the institution and poor people management
skills. The deficiencies in the personal integrity became
apparent in the very first few days in her new position: she
bragged in front of me by saying: “Am I not a bitch?” while
referring to the way she wrote a message by e-mail. That
deficiency in personal integrity unfolded in front of my eyes
in a nightmare that continued for several years until I moved
to another organisation.

The first incident occurred when that person shouted at me

in the presence of colleagues and threw me out of her office.
The reason that provoked her verbal violence was that our
Head of Delegation addressed a request to me and not to
her. I could not have been blamed for fulfilling my duties as
an experienced member of the administration. I brought my
concern about that incident of verbal violence to the Head of
Delegation, but she refused to interfere.

The first CDR assessment phase came almost right after this
painful experience. With the arrival of the new Head of
Sector, my assessment report dramatically changed from
excellent in the previous years, to average (although it was
signed by the same reporting officer), and it contained
recommendations to expand the scope of my tasks. I asked
the reporting officer for clarifications, as I knew that the
report was written by the newly arrived line manager who
had no proper notion of my contribution and tasks and
referred to an obsolete element from my job description.

Immediately after that, I was singled out and I was asked to

establish a table with all the tasks, filled in on a daily basis
including the time spent on each tasks. This was very
unusual and no one else was ever asked, before or after, to
provide such a table. Although the monthly table showed
the very high workload, no further action was taken by the
management. My job description was never updated to
reflect my real tasks, and business continuity was not
assured during my absence. Each time upon return from
holidays, I would find some 40 pending tasks, which were
not handled by the other colleague who worked part-time.
Some of those tasks had obviously deadlines and to be dealt
with priority, but that was not respected in my absence.

17
The Head of Sector always belittled my contribution and
efforts. Besides, she asked the newly arrived colleague,
without any experience, to “guide me” in my tasks. That
made me feel miserable, side-lined and discriminated. I did
not get respect for my experience, knowledge and devotion. I
received no recognition for my achievements and the
belittling of my contributions and the undue accusations
were reflected in my assessment reports. The last one
reached even an “unsatisfactory” mark.

The Head of Sector also constantly refused relevant training,

including a language course, which would have undeniably
been of benefit to my work, since I processed many
documents written in it. I did not even get the opportunity
to explain to the management why the course was relevant
for my work.

All the while, the understaffing meant for me chronic

overtime and overwork, which was not compensated. All
that happened with the explicit knowledge and approval of
the management. My colleague who worked part-time had
never been questioned, but I was severely micromanaged, as
shown above. The micromanagement escalated to the point
where the Head of Sector tasked the cleaning lady with
checking my flexitime presence!

Both the Head of Delegation and the Head of Sector asked

me to perform tasks which went much beyond my job
description and my grade and level of responsibilities. But
then, this increased level of responsibilities was fully
disregarded and I was even assessed “unsatisfactory” and my
career path was frozen.
I was also pressured to complete unlawful tasks which did
not comply with the financial rules – using specific budget
lines for services not covered by this, not following the
procedure for proper implementation of this budget,
executing payments before the service was completed, with
no proper justification. Any time I noticed an irregularity, I
alerted the line manager. However, me following my
obligations was interpreted as hostility and always resulted
in retaliation in the form of inappropriate criticism and
other malevolent behaviour. I will mention just one situation
among a myriad of such examples: the Head of Sector did
not share relevant documents with me on time; she kept
those documents locked. I was not even aware that we had
received such documents. When faced with the complaint
by the originator of the documents, she openly and unduly
put the blame on me in front of the originator of the
documents himself. That incident was followed by the
remark: “You’d better go on sick leave again.” (!) I had
received countless such emails containing such
inappropriate remarks.

When I turned to a confidential counsellor for help, I faced

even more retaliation. While being on a sick leave, I was
asked to fly from X (where I worked in the Delegation) to
Brussels and back, for a medical control. The conciliation by
the confidential counsellor was unsuccessful, so I went for
mediation. The Mediator visited the Delegation with the
intention to resolve the situation. After having listened to all
of us individually and discussing the list of tasks, the
Mediator’s team prepared an excellent proposal for

19
reallocation of tasks − more fairly distributed with regard to
the work-life balance. However, that explicit Mediator’s
recommendation was never implemented, without any
proper justification, at the sole discretion of the Head of
Sector. The final advice I then got from the Mediator was
that it would be better for me to leave the institution.

The established communication language in the Delegation

was English, but my line manager deliberately
communicated in another language with other colleagues,
even though I was present and could not follow that
language. That led to isolation and side-lining. I tried to
resolve the situation by applying for this particular language
course, but all my applications were refused, as mentioned
above. Sometimes the line manager even refused to
communicate with me. She also isolated me physically, as
my seat was deliberately moved to the most distant office,
the only one with no easy access to the other offices. The
wall in the kitchen was decorated with a huge framed photo
with an explicit caption “Our team”. I was not on that photo,
while even the cleaning lady was. As it was placed in the
kitchen, that photo was the first thing I saw every morning
and then several times per day. Over time, I became
increasingly isolated and side-lined. I felt like I was facing a
“mobbing team”. Each time when a new colleague was
recruited, I would hope that that colleague would be
different. But each new colleague became quickly part of the
“mobbing team”.

After a couple of years of side-lining, chronic, not

compensated overtime, inappropriate remarks, undue
pressure and general hostility following the last-in-turn
incident, I had an emotional collapse. My body reacted to
the psychological burden I went through including many,
many sleepless nights around the peaks of harassment: I got
high blood pressure, insulin resistance, gynaecological
problems, for which later I had to go through a major
surgery. My family suffered together with me, watching me
almost every evening crying at home. I had many sessions
with a psychologist to recover and to regain my self-esteem
and self-confidence. My husband also had sleepless nights to
worry about my health, to see me not even being able to take
good care of my children. He visited a psychologist for that,
too.

During my sick leave at that time, I got a second medical

control mission.

When returning to work after the long-term sick leave due

to work related stress and overburden, I expected that my
management would propose individual support measures; I
needed help throughout the transition period. But I did not
get any handover file and my tasks − their number and
substance − were even more vague than before. Finally, the
Head of Delegation invited me to a meeting to discuss my
future tasks. He accused me aggressively that in the days
before I asked the Head of Sector to justify the rejection of
files that I dealt with. He openly threatened to punish me if I
would not stop “belittling the achievements of the Head of
Sector” and “contacting the Headquarters’ colleagues”. He
was really arrogant and not interested to hear my points as
in a normal discussion.

21
I went home fully devastated. In earlier meetings, the same
manager had also warned me that if I complained about the
issues I encounter at work, I would have “huge problems”.
He even added that whatever I would say in my defence, “his
word would have more weight” than mine “due to [his]
nationality”. That was a clear sign of an open, deliberate and
direct discrimination based on my origin, since I come from
a small Eastern European Member State.

But we should not burn out because of work, in no

situation… We should not be put under unjustified stress
and isolation… We should be assessed according to our real
results and not because of personal preferences between
colleagues. And we must not be discriminated because of
nationality. This is against what Europe is about. This is not
the Europe I imagined when I was growing up behind the
Iron Curtain.

In a couple of days after this meeting, I had to go through a

major surgery. On top of that, the inappropriate behaviour
of the Head of Delegation caused again the nervous
breakdown and I went to the emergency hospitalisation.
When I came back after surgery, the Head of Delegation had
already left the post and moved to another country. He sent
me an email and suggested that we could carry out the
appraisal dialogue over the phone. I refused and explained
that I was afraid to go through another aggressive meeting
since I did not believe that he could change his attitude. In
reply he threatened me again that in such a case he would
put unsatisfactory mark for my work. And it happened. The
CDR report claimed that I had “bad cooperation with
colleagues”. I felt my reputation was tainted by this negative
assessment of my work that was completely unfair and
unjustified. My career was delayed. I appealed the CDR
report and in the dialogue with the appeal assessor I was
told that the problem was due to the “lack of chemistry” and
“my personality was not compatible” with the personality of
the managers. I cannot think of a more unprofessional way
of handling such a situation. We do not need to be best
friends at the office. However, there is a minimum level of
decency and respect that anyone is entitled to. The lack of
that cannot be justified by the “lack of chemistry”.

The new Head of Delegation was “briefed” about me by his

predecessor and inherited the same abusive attitude towards
me. At the first appraisal dialogue, he told me directly: “You
must be crazy to stay at this Delegation”. After only 3
months in the Delegation, without any possibility to build an
independent opinion about my personal qualities and
commitment, this new Head of Delegation intended to give
me unsatisfactory mark again. He did not intend to resolve
the situation; he made an attempt to worsen it, until I was
not “crazy” enough to “stay in the Delegation”.

My appraisal reports had since contained copy-paste of

unjustified comments year after year. I was criticised for not
“re-launching tasks” after sick leave, while before the sick
leave I never had such tasks, neither were they listed in my
job description or my annual objectives. I was always blamed
for “conflictual tendencies”, “focusing on finding mistakes
made by others” when I was flagging irregularities, which
was my job and my obligation. The management never

23
bothered to look for evidence outside the team to verify the
issues raised by me.
I contacted the career advisor, whom I am very thankful
because she managed to impact the decision of the latest
Head of Delegation who did not mark my work
unsatisfactory. Otherwise it would have been unsatisfactory
for a second year in a row. In one of our private exchanges,
the career advisor stated that my last appraisal report was
terribly unfair. But of course she had no means to interfere.

The intention to push me out of service became evident

when DG HR opened an invalidity procedure without any
prior consultation and without verifying the actual number
of my sick leave days. After several sleepless nights, I
contacted the Medical Service and asked for the exact
number of my sick leave days and also requested
clarifications regarding DG HR’s calculation. Finally, DG HR
had to cancel the procedure as groundless, pointing to an “IT
error”. No apologies followed for the distress that the launch
of the invalidity procedure caused to me.

The final push to “flush me out”, since I apparently was

“crazy” enough to stay in the Delegation despite all the
pressure, arrived in the form of a message via ARES with the
decision to abolish the post which I occupied, and nine-
month notice for me to leave. In the justification for that
decision, it was pointed out that the tasks related to the post
were no longer valid due to an internal reorganisation. I
resigned. Three months later DG HR published a vacancy for
the same post.
Most of the harassment acts I had experienced came from
the entire management. There are the preconditions for this
to happen, e.g., an attractive posting in geographic terms,
top positions are allocated by political criteria, but
sometimes the recruited EU diplomats have less expertise
and experience than is needed; the high number of local
colleagues working at the Delegation for long and in their
native environment. They rule the working relations and
have their say on the distribution of tasks. I believe that me
not being local and coming from a small Eastern European
Member State was at the core of what I experienced.

The lack of managerial skills in general and people

management skills in particular was the source of the toxic
atmosphere in the very small team. Maybe some colleagues
saw the problem but they remained indifferent as the
problem was not on their plate. Others feared losing their
temporary contracts and so kept their mouths shut. It was
the same type of fear as in the communist society that I grew
up in. The fear of retaliation by a superior that has at all
times the whole hierarchical machine as well as its
administrative and legal power behind him/her. This is fully
in breach of the European values.

I got help from the career advisor, as she took my case

personally and was willing to ease my situation by having a
meeting with the Head of Delegation to discuss it. My
confidential counsellor helped me a lot as a person to talk to.
But he would not do more than that. The help of the

25
psychologist was not enough and I had to visit a psychiatrist
for several months, supported by anti-depressants. The
teleworking situation after the Covid-19 outbreak helped a
lot but could not eliminate all tension. The best support,
empathy and active assistance, even to help me go back to
Earth and to see things from another neutral prospective, I
got from the group Harassment Watch Network and its
precious members.

I am still recovering, still working on how to get back my

self-confidence, my self-esteem, my belief in my good
qualities and how to get rid of feeling guilty. I am still
looking for answers why I had to go through such a tough
experience.

Career-wise I have changed jobs. I took up duties in the new

environment fearing though that the echo from the
harassers from the previous job might reach me and
influence my new employer.

I look at my new job as a step forward to maintaining my

dignity.

Justice will win at the end. Just do not be afraid to strive for
it!
 HR Boat
HR Boat 27
 You have no chemistry with me

My name is Claire. I come from one of the South-Eastern

European countries. I work in the field of information
technology. I chose to work at the Commission, because I
was told that this is a good place to work at, it offers a
good remuneration and holiday package as well as an
interesting work environment. I have worked for the
institutions for more than 10 years as an AST official.
Having worked in international teams for most of my
working life (nearly 20 years) preceding my admission to
the institutions I had had very good experience with
working in nationally diverse teams. At EU institutions,
however, to my bad surprise, I have experienced a lot of
intolerance and aggression in general, from certain
colleagues in every unit where I have worked. I have met
at least one or two people in most units who created a lot
of tension and demoralised part or the entire team. It was
often one of the secretaries, and/or the Heads of Unit.
Interestingly enough, I have not experienced and/or
witnessed abusive behaviour on the part of AD officials.
My last such experience and the worst of all was with my
former boss, who without any preceding event, launched a
campaign against me which showed all the typical
characteristics of harassment. For instance, she suddenly
called my execution of tasks “incompetent” while throwing

29
back five different solutions that I had offered her. Before
that, she had never complained about me or my work for
the whole time, nearly one year. She also humiliated,
shamed and ridiculed me in front of colleagues, calling me
“incompetent”, not understanding the meaning of certain
words and expressions, calling upon them to shame me,
too.

She also involved the colleagues in the campaign against

me in other ways:

 she lied to them that I had complained about them

to her, which was not true;
 she did not greet me (or did not greet me back)
whereas she loudly greeted other colleagues;
 she did not thank me for my work whereas she
loudly praised and thanked for other colleagues’
work; she also sent me abusive emails with
colleagues in copy.

I received from her an amount of tasks impossible to fulfil

within the deadline that she gave me so that I had to work
on weekends for several hours; she refused to sign my time
sheets, even though they were fully correct and
completed; she forbade me to send her reminders
regarding work, holidays, language training or any other
training courses, or refused training requests in the last
moment.
She criticised me during my CDR dialogue, held in an
intimidating atmosphere, while not allowing me to speak
at all, and pointed out that she has “bad chemistry” with
me.
Otherwise, she also talked with such an intimidating
intonation to me that I felt being questioned rather than
taking part in a professional conversation. My mind
started to block after a while during these occasions,
therefore I became unable to give her adequate replies or
defend myself in any way.
There were many more things that I cannot even
remember due to their high numbers.
Lastly, when I had enough, I decided to act involving DG
HR, because:

 she shamed me publicly for an emergency visit to a

doctor which I had to make during the day since I
have not received any other appointment;

 she called upon me in a public email to explain to

her and to the colleagues what health problems I
had, and to make up for the lost hours of work
(even though the emergency visit had to be made
due to an acute health condition that would have
prevented me to carry out any work on that day
anyway). In any case, I could have easily covered
the lost hours from my flexitime surplus had she
approved my timesheets before.

The source of the problem

In my opinion, the source of all the difficult situations is

her. She is a serial abuser. I have myself witnessed four

31
different actions of harassment targeted at four other
colleagues, and heard about three other cases from before.
In her case, I am convinced that it is about a serious
personality disorder grossly ignored by the administration
despite having received complaints against her in the past.
How I tried to solve the situation

At first, I wanted to comply and tried to adjust myself to

what she wanted, but also asked her in a private and very
polite email to show respect towards me. She has,
however, refused my polite request and increased her
campaign against me even further.
What happened to me
I very quickly got a burnout and my family doctor put me
on sick leave for two months.

Then I went back and tried to work for her, but after three
additional months, I got into an even deeper burnout.
Then my family doctor put me on a sick leave again. My
health and family life suffered a great blow with my small
boy having suffered a lot while seeing me in my deep
depression; my marital life has practically ceased to
function (and is dysfunctional to this very day).
The impact on my unit and my professional life

As regards the impact all this have had on my career: she

wrote an abusive and untruthful CDR about me, against
which I appealed. Although I received a very positive
decision from the appeal assessor with a nice summary of
my competences, the abusive CDR remained in my Sysper
file. Even though before and after (now by my new boss), I
received outstanding CDRs, the abusive one will probably
delay my next promotion.

Work in my field was essentially halted, meaning my

organisation could not carry out any IT projects in my
absence, which is a big loss towards the institution and
colleagues. During her mendacious campaigns against me
(first with me being in the office, then in my absence) she
managed to turn the remaining colleagues against me
(remaining, because people left or were moved from our
unit due to her behaviour). After my return from my final
sick leave, it took me several months to normalise my
relationship with the remaining colleagues − to convince
them of the opposite of the negative image that my former
boss promoted about me towards them. Luckily, I now
have a functioning relationship with them, although the
wounds are there.
How the Medical Service and my hierarchy helped me
I tried to recover during my sick leave, in which the
Medical Service was very helpful and understanding. They
said, I should not, and even cannot, go back to my unit as
long as the abusive boss is there. They even spoke to her
successor, my current boss, and explained to him my
story. My current boss is very kind with me, luckily, and
helped turning the hostile colleagues back into normal
relationship with me. Back then, my appeal assessor also
helped me a lot by giving me a fantastic summary of my

33
competences and performance on the year, on which my
harasser gave me a negative CDR.
Long-lasting impact
Despite the help, what I have gone through is a never
healing wound. Although I managed to gain back my
professional self-confidence, also thanks to the
reassurance of my current manager and other superiors as
well as colleagues, I still feel sick when hearing my
harasser’s voice during online meetings and especially,
when hearing her posing in the role of a guardian of
ethics. Because sadly, that is what she is doing. Knowing
that someone, who for me is pure evil, can successfully
pose like this and be respected for what is essentially a
life-lie, makes me sick even today.
My advice

Even though HR trainings on dignity (which is a pseudo

title actually covering harassment situations), advise you
to try to settle your situation privately with the harasser, it
may not work. I would have been far better off sending my
email requesting respect from her with important people
(also her superiors) in copy. These types of narcissistic
people will never acknowledge their fault, but they are
very worried about their reputation and image; therefore,
the only way to deal with them is to threaten their image
by involving other people.
I would also advise colleagues to collect and save all
abusive emails. Also, prepare for a bad CDR, so collect and
save emails praising your work (I did so and it worked!).
Try to find allies or former victims. The former victims I
found were still terrified to talk or do anything, but not all
people are like them.

35
 Harassment – a way to force colleagues into
submission

Hello! I have been working at the Commission for a few

years now. Basically, if you Google “bullying at work” I
have experienced the whole list of possible harms except
physical harassment. But at the start I did not recognise it
and did not know what it was about the workplace that
made me so uncomfortable. It was over time and
observing how individuals were targeted, verbally and
psychologically, that I recognised it was disrespectful
treatment. Then I thought I was not bullied myself, but
only other people around me were. Even after the first
time when I experienced a personal situation where I was
yelled at and insulted, I did not recognise it was bullying.
After self-doubt and more struggles and with professional
help I realised I was being bullied, too, and only then was
able to quit the job.
Why do people bully? In my case it seems it was for the
professional pursuits of those in charge who pressured
others in all sorts of ways. There is also the stress on the
job that can contribute to people unloading negative
feedback on others. I think that the manager was very
concerned about personal promotion and visibility and
used harassment as a way to force colleagues into
submission and keep them in check. This approach
became the status quo. Colleagues expected bad treatment
individually and as a group. The source of the bullying was
the manager who also enabled the harassing behaviour of
team leaders and validated it. The existing work culture
also plays a role in this.
There must be more that drives people to regular bullying
but I personally cannot understand why someone working
at the EU institutions, which should be based on EU
values, would engage in this kind of behaviour that
undermines people’s dignity, wellbeing and physical
health.
The impact on my personal life was very tangible. I was
even crying at the thought of having to come back to
work, dreading the job I once enjoyed. My health was
affected with more time off sick compared to the time
before this job. It affected my time with my partner, my
sex drive, made me feel hopeless, and stuck. My
professional and even personal confidence felt very low; I
felt like I was incapable of working, that what I could do
was just not enough.
I reached out to a therapist for my relationship and after
sharing my life experiences, it was the therapist who said I
was facing bullying. Then I chose to leave the job; there
was no other real solution for me.
Then, I was incredibly fortunate to have been told about
the Harassment Watch Network and reached out to a
colleague. I will be forever grateful for this support. The
non-judgmental openness for me to say how I felt was
liberating.

37
Some people said not to use the word “bullying” because it
was a serious accusation, without even knowing what I
had been through. This showed me people were ready to
dismiss my experiences without even hearing about them.
But others seemed more supportive and I felt the
solidarity of some colleagues, though most of them just
accepted that the mistreatment was part of the job at the
Commission. I think it is so important to work against the
taboo of toxic workplaces and managers and bring back
dignity to colleagues at work.
This experience has changed me forever. I am someone
different, with stronger values than before and am much
more active and vocal about protecting rights and human
dignity.

I am also more suspicious, have less trust in others as a

result, and am working to rebuild that again. Also, I saw
how bullying made other people more compliant to avoid
the same treatment and made them fearful of speaking up
and defending someone else. I lost hope in some close
colleagues to some degree but realised what is important
to me now: maintaining wellbeing and healthy
relationships. Nowadays I would not tolerate the
treatment I went through and would rather leave than put
myself in such a situation again. I am very hopeful that the
work of the Network will continue to raise this issue
across the EU institutions. Keep up your work, it is very
much needed!
Symptoms 39
 Speak up and you will be punished

My name is Alvarez. I am a high grade AD official. I have

several degrees and professional experience in
management, I am a nominated writer and academic, too.
I was one of the first officials from my country in Eastern
Europe, recruited by the Commission, where I passed two
open competitions to become, first, an AD official, and few
years later, a Head of Unit.

It was my dream to work for the EU – for the values and

objectives of the European project, but as well for the
(supposedly) exemplary public service, based on rules,
trust, commitment, respect... The job of middle manager
was a perfect match to my educational background,
professional experience and interests. I worked more than
10 years as middle manager – committed, highly
motivated, professional; my unit and I, we have always
achieved our objectives and usually surpassed them. I did
not spare my energy, time and intellect, I made numerous
analyses, contributions and proposals in the interest of the
service and staff, which went far beyond my immediate
responsibilities (e.g., I created an academic training course
and inter-institutional training modules, I conceptualised
on quality management, operational management, risk
assessment, amongst numerous other topics). Thus, I have
as well systematically tendered advice to the management
in my DG. Throughout the years, I invariably enjoyed the

41
appreciation and full support of staff, peers and
stakeholders, and, for long, even of the senior
management, but of the previous generation.
I became a target of a complot of three senior managers,
whose aim was to remove me from my post of a Head of
Unit.
I was subject to forced medical examinations, expert
opinions and tests (including the infamous Rorschach
tests…) without medical grounds and while I was working;
to forced sick leaves and attempts to be put in invalidity
upon explicit and documented requests of my
management to the Medical Service. As forced
examinations, tests and sick leaves, and restricting access
to the medical file are legally possible only in case of a
psychiatric condition, there were repetitive attempts to
fabricate such, and even to “treat” me with medication for
it (!). The fabrication was not based on medical evidence,
but exclusively on the “evidence” for my alleged
“conflictual nature”, “rigidness”, "underperformance" or
“disloyalty” as manager, provided from senior managers to
the Medical Service. This was a flagrant assault on my
physical, psychological and mental integrity. My case
involves other major infractions – of data protection,
privacy, access to information and to medical file, of the
rules governing the restricted access and of the deontology
code of medical staff.
In parallel to the attempts to be declared insane and
invalid, I was penalised with several consecutive libellous
reports and unsatisfactory assessments for my work. The
evaluations and the reports violated all procedural and
substantive rules. The reports had nothing to do with my
actual performance as middle manager and the massively
positive feedback I have received from peers, staff and
stakeholders. The evaluations were not meant to help me
develop professionally; the reports had for the senior
managers a pre-announced objective – to remove me from
my management post.
In parallel to the assaults on my integrity and the libellous
reports, I worked in the “spotlight” of permanent
unsubstantiated criticism, insinuations, restriction of my
professional activities, isolation and intimidation. My
contributions were ignored, often plainly deleted, I was
not put in copy of communications nor was I consulted on
decisions concerning my unit. I was not allowed to attend
events, although I was the only legitimate candidate, I was
accused that I did not know the rules governing our area
of activity, etc. My unit, too, was object of insinuations
and unsubstantiated criticism. The senior managers
discriminated my unit against at the level of promotion,
staffing, acknowledgment of achievements, etc. A few
colleagues left not only our DG, but the Commission
altogether.
At the end I was blackmailed and pressurised to “opt out
voluntarily”, in order to “avoid the official reassignment
procedure”. In reality, there were the three managers who
wanted to avoid it because the procedure would have

43
exposed the corrupted evaluations to rapporteurs,
committees, and even the Commissioner.
In reality, management wanted to get rid of me because I
was raising serious difficulties and irregularities,
maladministration, failures to deliver on professional
duties, etc., and I was defending professional positions,
which were in the interest of the service and were
massively shared by the staff of our DG. Prejudice
(prohibited by Art. 21 bis and 22 bis) was applied via the
libellous reports and via the Medical Service. I possess
explicit evidence that when I raised a professional
consideration, or when I complained, management
immediately asked for the “intervention” of the Medical
Service…
In a vicious circle, my legitimate actions to defend myself
against the libellous reports, the harassment and the
assaults on my integrity, or to search for a dialogue and
mediation, were invoked, in turn, as other “evidence” for
my disloyalty or for my “paranoia” and “projective” mind,
i.e., as signs for a psychiatric condition… Thus, I suffered
prejudice prohibited by Art. 12, too.
All this inflicted irreparable damages on my health,
human dignity and integrity as well as on my career. After
management explicitly and repetitively told me that
irrespective of my actual performance, of the opinion of
staff and peers, of the outcome of the procedures I have
initiated, they just did not want me to be Head of Unit (as
plain and simple as that!), I realised that I had to rescue
myself. Literally.
Over the past few years, I have submitted Art. 90(2)
complaints and Art. 24 requests for assistance, which were
accompanied by more than a THOUSAND pages of
explicit and well-documented evidence. I have tried
mediation, too, but the management rejected mediation
(and even penalised me for it). DG HR upheld one of my
Art. 90(2) complaints (against a report) but my
management did not implement the decision... and later,
DG HR practically withdrew their own decision, allowing
for the libellous report to be redrafted as even more
libellous... Recently, DG HR upheld, though in very
limited terms, another Art. 90(2) complaint of mine. It
remains to be seen how, and if ever, this decision will be
implemented. However, despite the abundant and explicit
evidence, DG HR has rejected all claims for prejudice,
harassment, abuse of power, false administrative acts with
malicious intent, assaults on integrity, legal infractions
and damages. Currently there are two ongoing procedures
at the EU Tribunal and one request for waiving of
immunity of a doctor of the Medical Service.
It seems that at the Commission, prejudice and
harassment, if not assaults on integrity, occur as
retaliation for professional and trade-union convictions,
for raising serious difficulties and irregularities or breaches
of professional duties. Colleagues’ experiences show that
this is a pattern, not just isolated cases.
Worse is the tacit policy of DG HR to cover up the
prejudice and harassment and justify the wrongdoings

45
even in cases where the evidence is explicit, abundant and
well documented. It seems that the objective of DG HR is
not to fight and sanction harassment. DG HR adopts an a
priori biased position to defend the harassers, not to
examine and judge objectively and in substance the facts
and the documentary evidence. Besides, DG HR pretends
to lack expertise in what it pretends to be only
“professional disagreements and conflicts.” DG HR
systematically does not apply the legal framework on
harassment and prevention of prejudice and systematically
does not deliver on its duty of care.
Furthermore, those who dare complaining are additionally
penalised by more harassment at work, by libellous
reports, by accusations of disloyalty, lack of cooperation or
conflictual character, by reassignments, by assaults
involving the Medical Service, and DG HR passes these
flagrant infractions in silence.
So, not only wide-spread harassment is an alarming
phenomenon in itself, but as well the culture of cover-up,
impunity and penalisation of the victims.
I would advise everyone who experiences similar
situations:
 Document everything – meetings, dialogues,
statements, incidences – and present your account
to the participants for validation. The absence of
reaction is implicit validation. In addition, try to
have witnesses as much as possible.
 Ask staff/colleagues/peers for opinion on the
allegations, addressed to you.
  Study carefully the applicable provisions and case
law. Learn your rights. Take a good lawyer.
 Look around for other cases, probe your experience
and opinions within networks, join forces, support
colleagues and search for support.
 Do not expect objective approach, compliance with
law and decisions in substance from DG HR, so
draft your complaints and prepare your
documentary support in a way to be ready to be
transferred to the Tribunal.

In the meantime, try to take good care of your health –

physical and psychological. Do not succumb to doubts
about yourself. You are not incompetent, or paranoid, or
projective. Harassment is real and you are not alone.
A little personal detail in this context: while my
management made me doubt in myself, in my capacity for
logical judgement, in my human qualities, integrity,
professional competences, while my management and a
doctor of the Medical Service were trying to fabricate a
“psychiatric condition” of mine, the staff of my unit
described me (in surveys, in dedicate notes to
management and in personal messages) as a “dream
manager” who cared for staff and set high professional
standards in management; at the same time, peers
acclaimed my analytical contributions, and readers and
literary critics in my country proclaimed me an “extremely
intelligent and highly talented humanist writer”…

47
Words ,Words, Words 49
 I am the Boss!

I have worked in the Commission as an Administrator

for over 30 years, mostly in positions of high
responsibility, coordination and communication and
have an excellent work record. I am dedicated to my
work and to the EU, and the majority of people I have
worked with have appreciated the quality of my work
and the range of my skills. My staff reports are a
testament to this, so my professional competence is not
contested; the reason I am stressing these elements is
because I want to make clear from the outset that the
description of the situation that will follow cannot be
attributed to any “special” traits of my character or
temperament and dismissed as personal interpretation
or subjective perspective.
I have dealt with many delicate issues in my career with
tact and circumspection and have facilitated complex
situations of HR nature, so I know the system from the
inside and have a great network, which can support and
advise me. Still, the situation I am forced to endure has
not been solved by any actor in the system, formal or
informal.
In the past 7 years, my whole unit – not just I personally
– has been suffering the bullying of a senior manager
with a very particular sense of what the nature of
managing is; it can be summed up in four words: I am

51
the Boss. Therefore, his subordinates are expected to
follow his instructions, even though these instructions
often go against the expertise, the logic, the spirit and
the letter of sound administrative practice in the
Commission. Several people have left the unit and the
directorate exasperated, after having denounced this
behaviour up to the highest administrative levels of the
DG and other bodies outside the DG. This behaviour is
equivalent to harassment, in my view, as it has created
lots of stress and anxiety to myself and several other
people I know and work with. The most typical
example, which is also the most detrimental to the
functioning of the whole service, is the director’s
tendency to “revise” all the reports produced by my unit
(even the ones which are not supposed to be submitted
to him so that the studies concerned remain neutral) in
a way that suits his own ideas and preferences. In the
other directorates of the service this practice is known,
resented and contested but this situation is being
tolerated, which − in the mind of the perpetrator −
equals encouragement. I cannot give more explicit
details here without compromising the anonymity of
the people concerned but my colleagues and I have
exhausted all the existing channels of raising awareness
about the issue.
This has led to a toxic atmosphere that has created a
chasm between my directorate and the rest of the
service, which I could describe as a tug of war without
risk of exaggeration. Important work necessary for the
improvement of the service in the form of studies,
reports and evaluations is being highjacked and
consistently distorted in order to reflect the views of
this particular senior manager. This is a serious breach
of ethics and integrity and, as an official, I am torn
between my duty to uphold the integrity of my function
and the direct orders of my hierarchy. My successive
heads of unit have struggled for years with this
situation with all the means at their disposal ultimately
failing to improve the situation. One of them retired
prematurely and the current one is suffering as the rest
of us.
As I am one of the most senior and experienced
officials in the unit, I have been trying to stand up to
this behaviour with dire consequences: personal
attacks to my work and dignity, leading to adverse
effects for my health and well-being.
I find it sad that the system does not provide people in
my situation with more support and real solutions. My
trust in the system has been severely affected even
though I remain as convinced a European as ever.

53
 My wasted 8 years at the Commission

I am an experienced diplomat with a long career before

joining the Commission that opened a new unit in a
specialised field I feel very much aligned with, as I
completed a PhD in this area.

I joined my first service of the Commission as a

Seconded National Expert. My experience of the unit
was excellent. The Heads of Unit followed one another
– all excellent managers, who delegated sufficiently to
professionals, who trusted their staff and never
attempted to micro-manage. The atmosphere was
friendly and helpful, and it was a joy to work in the
service during the first five years.

However, five years after I joined it, the unit was

dissolved, and I was obliged to change unit. The
situation became very different. I, and many
colleagues, experienced harassment and humiliation
from my new Head of Unit, whose ideas of
management would have appeared modern in 1850!

During the period I was subordinated to him, I suffered

from undue criticism and I was forced to do my job at a
lower standard than I was able and used to do.

My diplomatic background is at the origin of a vast

network of contacts, some from previous posts, and
new ones created in Brussels. I always had a rich social
life and a dynamic career, giving my contribution in
different contexts, with a particular emphasis on
linguistic issues. This particular situation seemed to
create jealousy from my Head of Unit and induced a
bullying behaviour in him. He ordered the whole unit,
in writing, to inform him about each person we
intended to meet and ask him for permission for any
kind of activity, even outside our working hours.

The fact that my level of qualification was higher than

his, seemed to be taken against me and I endured
humiliations and sabotage. He obliged me twice to
move office, without any clear reason apart from a clear
demonstration of power over me. The second time was
just to move three offices down the corridor.
Colleagues from another unit, who worked in the same
corridor, were amazed at this move, and said that it
made absolutely no sense.

During my stay at this unit, I applied for an open

competition to become a full member of the European
Commission staff. On the day preceding my written
tests, I was victim of sabotage from my Head of Unit.
He sent three email attacks to me, something he had
never done previously. I was in such a state of mind
that I was unable to get a repairing sleep that night. My
capacity of reasoning was deeply affected and I was
unable to pick my brains and get a good performance
at the written tests. This way, he was able to dismiss

55
any shadow of competition and to keep a predominant
role in the unit.

I had, however, succeeded in an open competition for

Head of my new unit, for which he was appointed in
the end. When he arrived in Brussels, he confessed to
me: “I cannot understand why the Commission
appointed me instead of you. You have everything I
have, and a lot more that I do not have”.

In this way, he became my Head of Unit with the

unpleasant consequences already mentioned. However,
I was not the only one to endure this non-respectful
behaviour. He got rid of an excellent colleague for no
other reason than the fact that she speaks a certain
dialect different from his own. (That colleague is now
Head of Department at a university.) This
unashamedly favoured speakers of his own dialect, and
ridiculed speakers of other dialects. He promoted
those who shared his dialect, and side-lined those who
spoke any other dialect.

I overcame the situation by leaving the Commission

but my career has suffered long-term damage. I missed
several promotions in the national civil service while I
was investing time at the Commission. This situation
had a financial repercussion because I have now a
lower salary and my pension will be lower, so the
completely unacceptable, bullying behaviour of this
person had long-term consequences for my life.
The exercise of power in such an unfair and vicious way
should not only be forbidden, but also sanctioned. The
consequences of such behaviour are painful for the
person enduring it and harmful for the service, taking
into account the loss of effectiveness and quality of the
work it can entail. In my experience in the
Commission, there is complete impunity for such
negative behaviour and no effective remedy for
harassment. The perpetrator seems to benefit from
such a complete impunity as was shown by this
particular Head of Unit, who told me verbally once: “I
can do anything I like to you, and you have no
defence.” He was right, unfortunately.

As I mentioned two paragraphs ago, I left the

Commission and returned to the national diplomatic
service, as there was no effective remedy against the
vicious harassment within the Commission. I felt that I
had wasted 8 years at the Commission, and my long-
term career was adversely affected. When I left, I was
extremely disappointed with the functioning of the
Commission.

57
 E

Enabling 59
 When the truth does not matter: From
state dictatorship to a place of fear

I come from a state from the former Eastern bloc. I did

live more than a decade of my life in the dictatorial
communist regime. I have witnessed first-hand the
debilitating effect of the regime on the professional
and personal lives of people around me. For example,
after the democratic changes, it appeared that one of
the best friends of our family was an informant of the
(KGB-like) secret police. My family on both sides has
suffered from discrimination in their professional lives.
I do remember the propaganda and indoctrination
from when you go to kindergarten. I do remember the
fear that was instilled in people.
At that time, it is a well-known fact that the only way
for you to have good professional future was to climb
higher up in the Communist Party ranks. That meant
that you very often had narrow-minded, unethical and
sometimes incompetent superiors, who were ready to
brutally crush anyone using the literally endless power
of the Party, which was declared front and centre in
Article 1 of the Constitution.
Right after the democratic changes, Europe seemed like
a distant dream. But a dream nonetheless. I am glad
that I was part of fulfilling that dream, as I joined a

61
ministry in my country and participated in the
technical negotiations on two chapters linked to the
accession process. I do remember a last-minute very
tense negotiation on one of the chapters that was held
in Brussels by three persons from our side. I was one of
those persons and I believe I helped a lot. We had
achieved agreement on the closure of the chapter that
night.

After the accession, I went abroad and worked for an

international think-tank in my area of expertise. But I
was always aiming towards that dream: Europe. And
moving to work for the Commission was a natural step
in my career. A great challenge in a great working
environment, I thought, fostered by the rule of law,
non-discrimination, protection of dignity, human
rights and all the other European values. My interview
for the job with the Head of Unit, the Director and the
Director General at that time solidified that
expectation: great professionals, very well-mannered,
down-to-earth and open-minded. So, I was all in for it.
I have been working in the Commission for the past 12
years: in the same Directorate, but in different sectors
and units. I was a Temporary Agent for 1.5 years and
then I passed an external EPSO competition and
became an official right after that.
 What have I experienced?
If you are asking about a harassment-related
experience in my professional life in the Commission, I
must say that my first few years after joining were
great. It turns out that I was just lucky. As part of
professional mobility and keen to explore new areas of
interest within my professional expertise, I moved to a
new sector with a newly appointed Head of Sector. She
was parachuted at this position by the Head of Unit
with whom she had been working closely for almost 10
years in his previous unit. Things looked generally fine
for the first 1.5 years, with only one occasional incident
where I was asked to do a task which was contrary (not
outside, but contrary) to my job description. However,
things took a sharp turn after another incident where I
was asked to provide a flawed professional advice to a
request from outside the Commission, based on a
wrong interpretation of subject matter provided by my
Head of Sector during an expert group meeting. I was
pressured for 1 month to change my view in frequent
meetings behind closed doors. To me it was obvious
that the reputation of the newly-established Head of
Sector was on the line. I understood that I was asked to
breach my professional duties in order to save the
reputation of this person. I did not agree and ultimately
we provided the correct reply to the stakeholder. But
this was the moment, when the retaliation started.

63
For instance, my Head of Unit told me that I could
prepare a position on a document only in my free
time. Then he heavily criticised me for doing exactly
that. He reproached me for correcting my Head of
Sector’s misreporting from another external meeting,
although I was able to prove that it was misreporting.
They both, my Head of Sector and my Head of Unit,
completely and consistently ignored most of my
contributions. The Head of Sector told me that they
ignored me, because I had “issues expressing [myself]
verbally and in writing”. I provided numerous written
testimonies from internal and external colleagues to
the contrary. When I complained about being side-
lined, the Head of Unit told me that that was only my
perception because I used flexitime over the years (as
far as I am aware, most, if not all colleagues use
flexitime). When I then asked why flexitime
(recuperation) was popping up as an issue only now
after many years, my Head of Unit called me into his
office. He put pressure on me, insistently claiming
that I was lying when stating that I had been using
flexitime (recuperation) in the past in largely the same
way as now. He had printed out all my time sheets of
the past 3 years to “prove” that I had taken much less
recuperation in the past. (He seemed to have
forgotten that he himself approved all my
recuperation requests.) The average difference
between the past and today’s practice was not more
than a few hours: In the past I had usually taken a bit
more than 10 hours recuperation per months on
average, while in recent months it was a bit more than
12 hours per months on average. He chose to make a
big fuss and call me a liar for such a negligible
difference. It became clear that he was looking for a
pretext to trash me, even with the most absurd
“argument”. In essence, I was looking for assistance in
resolving my side-lining, showing actual evidence for
that, and in exchange I received completely illogical
allegations that I was to blame for that, because I was
using flexitime.
At a certain point, I was completely isolated from my
unit, did not have any work but my Head of Unit
would call me to his office and ask: “What did you do
today?” On professional matters, he told me that his
opinion can overrule facts regarding the position of a
third party (stakeholder), even when explicitly
confirmed in writing by that same stakeholder.
At that point, I started fearing that if the opinion of
the Head of Unit can overrule facts, if I have no
possible recourse to logic and facts to defend myself,
then I really have no way out of this situation. It
happened indeed that my annual assessment was an
exercise in harassment and allegations with zero facts.
My complaint of being side-lined was turned into a
“deficiency in cooperation with colleagues”. My

65
insistence in reflecting facts correctly both internally
and externally was presented as “deficiency in
understanding political aspects of the job”. When I
provided evidence to the contrary, my Head of Unit
insistently interrogated me on how much time I had
spent collecting that evidence.
The culmination was that both my Head of Sector and
my Head of Unit totally refused to communicate with
me, I did not receive an invitation to a meeting on a
subject that was central to my work, and then a public
display of hostility by my Head of Sector in front of my
closest colleagues, all this in one day. In addition, the
Head of Sector threatened me three times with a
meeting with the Head of Unit on his return from
vacation the week after. That broke me. After what I
had experienced over the past 6 months, I was sure
that all logic would be out of the window at that
meeting. I felt like a pig waiting for its virtual slaughter
in a few days.
Who was the source of such situations?

I had experienced most of the harassment acts from my

Head of Unit. But I am not sure what part of that was
motivated by the “support” to the Head of Sector in her
newly-established position. I have since been
approached by other colleagues detailing events and
allegations similar to my own experience. I think I was
just considered as a threat to the reputation and the
professional career of the newly-established Head of
Sector. So, I had to be put in my place. I was just doing
my job diligently and independently, as the Staff
Regulations foresee it.
What have I done?
I contacted a Confidential Counsellor. She advised me
to have a series of meetings with the Head of Unit and
to prepare evidence and points for discussion. My
Head of Unit initially refused to agree to a common
account of those meetings, and later on even refused
to provide his own account of those meetings.
Then at the peak of the harassment actions against me
by my Head of Sector and my Head of Unit, when I
contacted the Confidential Counsellor again, DG HR
(the confidential counsellor’s unit) told me that, while
I was on vacation, my harassment case was closed. I
asked for urgent reopening the case, even with another
Confidential Counsellor, but DG HR did not provide
one in time before my mental collapse.

I had then another Confidential Counsellor, I am very

thankful to her and her efforts, but she was
unsuccessful. Same with the Mediation Service
afterwards. I cannot reveal more than that due to
confidentiality.

67
 What impact all this has had?
I had persistent chained panic attacks and sleepless
nights around the heat of the harassment attacks.
My physical health was endangered as well, but I
prefer not to say more than that. My wife also
started having panic attacks on her own. She is still
visiting a psychologist for that.
I have now a CDR that claims that I have had bad
cooperation with colleagues. And my career is
delayed. But maybe the biggest impact with regard
to my workplace is the total disillusionment that I
have now with regard to the rule of law and
upholding the European values when it comes to
harassment in the European institutions.
I see a lot of fear in some colleagues. The same type
of fear that was in the communist society which I
grew up in. Fear of retaliation by a superior that has
at all times the whole hierarchical machine and its
administrative and legal power behind him/her. This
is very, very bad for a community, let alone a
professional community at the heart of what we
want to call Europe, not geographically, or even
administratively, but most importantly in terms of
values.
 Who has helped?
My third Confidential Counsellor could help me a lot
as a person to talk to. But she would not do more than
that. I also got support from a trade union
representative. In addition, I visited a psychologist for
several months. The teleworking situation during the
pandemic has also helped. But what helped the most is
that I am now pursuing a number of legal cases and in
parallel I am an active member of the Harassment
Watch Network. It does take some strength to stand
up, but you see much further once you have stood up.
The experience is not fully behind me. As I mentioned,
I am pursuing a number of legal cases. I do hope I will
not be disillusioned with regard to the Court, too.
Maybe the disillusionment makes you wiser. If it was
me on my own, I would probably have given up by
now. But with the Harassment Watch Network I see
that there is energy and hope that we can influence the
future of our institution, the future of our colleagues in
similar situation and to reinstate the European values
back into the heart of Europe.
Message to my colleagues
Stand up straight with your shoulders back. You are
not alone. We can do it together.

69
 71
Same everywhere
 When these “little things” are adding up

Before this story turned my working life into another

direction, my situation was great.

Here I was, working as a secretary in a nice team. One

of my tasks was to take care of a big and important
meeting group with participants from the Member
States and associated countries. I loved to go along on
business trips, organising the meetings and sometimes
side-events and was aware that this is really “my thing”
to do. I felt respected and appreciated a lot.

Never would I have thought that this could change

soon. However, the big change was just around the
corner.
Our Deputy Head of Unit left on pension, and he was
replaced by a lady, who was the same age as me. I
knew her from seeing her in my DG and had a very
positive opinion about her by first impression.
At the beginning, the new Deputy Head of Unit spent
a lot of time in my office (which I shared with another
secretary), sharing thoughts, sometimes helping to
prepare the documents for the meeting. It was her own
choice to do so, and my colleague and I thought she
just liked to be with us. Apart from work, we were
talking about various things. We felt somehow on the

73
same wavelength and the situation looked rather
positive.

The next big meeting approached and took place

outside of Belgium. I introduced our new Deputy Head
of Unit to the group members, which she appreciated
very much.

One day, I had to prepare an Ares file to organise a

farewell cocktail for our director. The Deputy very
clearly said to me that I should only prepare the file;
the follow up would be then taken over by the
secretary to the Head of Unit. The Deputy Head of
Unit understood that I had already a lot to do at the
time. I did as I was told.

After a while, we realised that the dossier was still not

signed by our DG and even worse: nobody could find
the paper-dossier anymore. Maybe this happened
because of our DG’s office-move at the time. However,
I got all the blame for it. The Deputy Head of Unit got
furious when I reminded her of what she had told me,
namely that the secretary to the Head of Unit was
actually in charge of the follow-up, not me.

In the end I managed to find the lost dossier and was

happy to pass this positive message on to the Deputy
Head of Unit. But instead of a thank-you, I received
this very long e-mail of her, reminding me of my tasks,
telling me that she herself could not do my job, etc. I
was so disappointed! From a good working
relationship we swapped to a cold atmosphere where I
felt so insecure and treated in a very unfair way.
Within a moment, all my confidence I had built up at
work vanished. I decided at this moment not to react
immediately and wait until later. I was under great
stress, my hands started to shake; I never had this
before.

My colleague-secretary, sitting in front of me said I

was exaggerating and that all would be fine. I think my
body had already understood that I was just entering a
more difficult phase in my working life. Driving home
that evening I got lost on the motorway as I was
absentminded… I felt that from that moment my life
would change. And it did.
A few days later I replied to the Deputy Head of Unit’s
mail, that I knew my tasks quite well, but that I found
it a bit sad that she would send an e-mail like that
rather than speaking to me, as I still believed that
things could have been easily sorted out in a face-to-
face conversation. She did not comment on that e-
mail. The situation in the office became rather cold. I
lost my faith in her being a friendly, sympathetic
person. I felt as if I had to watch my back now all the
time, which was very exhausting. I did not trust her
anymore.

75
A week later, another big meeting was supposed to
take place, when Belgium announced a general strike
of the public transport. Living outside Brussels, I was
forced to come by car. The evening before the Deputy
Head of Unit offered to take some documents for the
meeting and bring them along the next day. I kindly
explained that I would manage my tasks on my own
and rather do this kind of secretary-tasks by myself to
avoid problems later. That I would put all we need in a
suitcase and would drive by car, to get as close as I
could to the venue and that I would finally walk,
should I be blocked by the strike. I became more
distant towards her as well, which helped me to stay
focused on my tasks.

Inside I was deeply hurt by this frosty atmosphere; one

could tell she was challenging me by little things. One
of my closer colleagues built me up one day, when he
saw me in my insecurity about work. He reminded me
of what I had all done by now, of the appreciation I
enjoyed in the working group and among other
colleagues. That helped me a big deal to carry on.

I remember that I planned to openly speak to the

Deputy Head of Unit about the changed working
atmosphere. Openly. The mistake I made was I was
waiting for a good moment. However, such “good
moments” never come by themselves.
The situation became a bit strange in times. One day
we had to move office and we all started to pack.
Suddenly I received a phone call from my husband. My
mother, who was on a visit with us, had fallen off our
staircase and my husband found her lying on the floor.
I had to rush home immediately and sent a quick
notice to the Deputy Head of Unit, explaining what
had happened and that I had to take the next train
home. Later on, I sent her messages with more
explanations when I was in hospital with my mother.
There was never an answer or reaction from her. Back
in the office the next day, I informed colleagues that I
would pack up boxes for the move – so they should
please come and see me if needed, as I would not be
able to read mails at the same time. That also led to a
nasty remark of hers.

One could say, these are “little things” – OK, you

should accept that everybody has sometimes a bad
day. But if these “little things” are adding up and up…
this poisons the atmosphere bit by bit and you are
there, not understanding what is going on.

I started trying harder to do everything right. When

the Deputy Head of Unit sent me a request, she put
my colleague-secretary in copy, which was quite
unusual. Before that, I worked completely
independently. Now I developed a new way of
working: I reported to the Deputy Head of Unit what I

77
was doing, that this task was done, and that now I
would be working on that task… etc. I had the feeling
that I had to justify and prove everything.

Suddenly Ares documents in paper version could not

be found any more, when they left my office to the
next person on the routing slip. So, I had to do the
work again. A week later they showed up again. When
looking back I do not believe that this was a
coincidence. I would not exclude that she wanted to
destabilise me by hiding dossiers, making it look as if I
lost them. But of course: there is no proof.

One day per week I was on teleworking. There was this

one time when I was facing technical difficulties and
told the Deputy Head of Unit about that. She
answered if I did not have the right equipment, that
this could not be really called teleworking. I replied
that, of course, for so many times I could telework
without difficulties and that technical problems could
also occur in the office.

When we were together with others, she was always

very friendly. But would I see her alone, she would
completely ignore me, not even saying “hello”. I found
this very irritating.

Due to my workload, I sometimes had to work

overtime and introduced the extra hours into Sysper. I
noticed that my last timesheet was not signed, where I
had a bonus of 18 hours accumulated over the past few
months. They were approved by the Head of Unit
already the month before. This very day in March I was
told by the secretary to the Head of Unit that “they”
wonder how it came that I had so many extra hours. I
explained that this was an accumulation over the last
months already signed off. The secretary of the Head
of Unit was supposed to tell me that I should signal if I
could not handle my workload. I answered to my
colleague that my overtime hours were wrongly
interpreted and that I could of course handle my work.
The Deputy Head of Unit “invited” me to read the
flexi-time rules. A few days later, the Head of Unit
asked me to come to his office and announced the
following: “Yes, I see you in the office early in the
morning and working, however I do not see how with
your profile you can work so much overtime, so I will
not sign. Your overtime hours will be lost”. I only
answered: “OK, no problem” and that I was happy to
give a donation of my extra working hours to the
Commission. I even smiled and stayed friendly, there
was no way I wanted to show them how hurt I was.
Inside of me I felt really disappointed and destabilised.
I felt as if I was in a conflict situation with the Deputy
Head of Unit and now also with our Head of Unit.
Both were friends, both were of the same nationality.

79
Next episode: At an evening before another big
meeting, I suggested to the Deputy Head of Unit that I
would rather work from home in the morning as I was
not feeling very well (the next day was anyhow my
teleworking day), however, at 11 AM I would of course
come to take care of the meeting, bring all documents
we needed and prepare the room for the participants.
The meeting would start at 2 PM, however people
would probably arrive earlier. Her answer was: “I do
not see why you should not come first to the office”. I
explained to her that I was feeling a bit miserable, with
a cold coming up and it would help me not to rush
around between my home, our office in the north and
the venue on the other side of Brussels, before the
meeting. Her cold answer was: “Either you are sick, or
you are not”.

I made a mistake probably: I should have said: “OK, I

am sick, and I go home now”. However, I liked my job,
and I did not want to bail on anyone. I made an
arrangement with my newly arrived colleague: she
would go to the office to take supplement copies if
needed, and I would work from home until 11 AM and
then drive to the venue to set-up the meeting room.
The next morning, I sent to the Deputy Head of Unit
and the Head of Unit an e-mail, explaining the
situation, and the answer was that it was not up to me
to distribute tasks… I apologised but said clearly that I
just tried to keep the ball rolling for the meeting and
that I needed a bit help and understanding, not feeling
very well myself. I just knew that I did the right thing
to ask for help and support – I did not feel bad about
it.

During the meeting, all went as usual. One of the

external guests came up to me to talk about some
documents he had requested; he knew I had passed his
request on to the Deputy Head of Unit. However, as he
had never received them, he approached her (the
Deputy Head of Unit); her answer was that I had never
mentioned such request towards her. This external
guest just felt that I should know this, knowing me
quite well, my good work and my commitment. I was
again very disappointed about the whole situation and
could not wait to go home to get a rest. I asked a
colleague of mine to take travel reimbursement
requests of all participants with him to the office, so I
could go straight home. I was on sick leave with a
heavy bronchitis and had a medical certificate for a
whole week. Once back in the office, I saw that the
reimbursement requests from that meeting were still
on my desk. Usually, the payment procedure must be
quickly launched – as we only have a certain number
of days to get the payments done. Suddenly this did
not seem to be an issue.

81
My Head of Unit called me in, asking how I was. I told
him that I recovered, and all was fine, but that I had a
heavy bronchitis. And he asked me: “Are you sure it
was not a psychological thing?” Again, what a
disappointment. Only later I found out that he must
not ask me this kind of question. My Head of Unit and
the Deputy Head of Unit were good friends, so I
understood I did not have the slightest chance
anymore to create a positive atmosphere with them;
the Head of Unit had always taken the side of his
Deputy and did not defend me, although I had the
feeling that he appreciated my work and also me as a
person.

I approached the HR department of my DG to ask for

help and advice on this matter, as I did not know
anymore how to handle this toxic situation. But I did
not want to leave, as I liked my job and the tasks I took
care of. The HR colleagues shook their heads: they did
not know how to help me in this situation, they said.
They did not mention the possibility of contacting a
coach to bring together the two parties and discuss, a
form of mediation. Until then I did not think that my
situation could be called “harassment”. I once spoke to
a colleague, a friend of mine, and it was him who
immediately said that this was harassment. I have to
admit this happened all before the word “harassment”
was openly pronounced. In the meantime, we all
learned a lot within the Commission and beyond
concerning this subject. Back then, it was a different
situation.

How did I get out? I left my unit and accepted the offer
to work as a secretary to the Head of a neighbouring
unit, still in the same directorate. On my last day, I
told my Head of Unit that the reason of my leave was
80 % because of the Deputy Head of Unit and how she
interacted with me. He only said that sometimes two
people are just not going along.

Two years later I had the occasion to participate in a

training course about harassment, and this was an eye-
opener. I understood the mechanisms behind.
Targeted, repetitive actions, the victim sticks out a bit
of the crowd. Reasons: jealousy maybe, who knows. I
learned a lot and I realised many things – also: that I
would have never been able to solve the situation on
my own. Most victims leave for another job.

But I am marked, and I am careful now, somehow, I

am not the same person anymore.

This particular Deputy Head of Unit showed the same

pattern of behaviour before, towards another secretary
who approached me one day and we exchanged our
experiences. It helped me understand that there was
nothing wrong with me. On the contrary. I thought

83
that the Deputy Head of Unit made my work life so
miserable because she wanted me to leave, so her
previous secretary could take over my job. However,
her previous secretary confessed to me that she would
never ever again work with this person.

And what happened to my colleague I shared the office

with, the one who said at a certain moment that I was
exaggerating in my perception, and all would be fine
again? Well: she got as well mistreated by this Deputy
Head of Unit, soon after I had left this unit. A similar
situation: All of a sudden, she could not do anything
good enough anymore.

In 2020 this Deputy Head of Unit changed the DG. A

relief for me that there was no chance that I would
have to work with her again. Whenever there was a re-
organisation of my DG I became nervous, thinking by
myself: “Maybe she would join my team? Maybe she
would even become my new Head of Unit”?

Did I ever talk to her about it? No! But I tell others
what she did to me. She made me give up the job I
loved, the people around me and the place where I felt
appreciated. She pushed me to my limits, so that I
started to doubt in my sound judgement, my capacities
and beyond. I keep saying that she is the falsest person
I ever met in my professional career – and I mean it.
I find that my story could help others, I encourage
everybody in a similar situation to react in time. At the
moment when you feel “this person does not treat me
in a fair way”, step out, say what you think, set
boundaries. Stay polite and correct in your wording
but remain yourself and – make sure you have a
witness. Do not wait for a good moment to discuss,
create that good moment yourself and show how
strong you are.

I agree that in our international working environment

it can be difficult to understand some cultural imprint.
However, treating people in a mean way should not be
accepted and not be excused by the general remark
that this could be related to the challenge of working
in an international environment with different
nationalities, different kind of behaviour-codes and
different ways of perception. That not being on the
same wavelength, not going along due to possible
cultural differences should not become a general
excuse. A mean behaviour, putting down the other
person in a repeated manner, should just simply not be
accepted anywhere.

85
Turning a blind eye
87
 Once targeted, you cannot escape

I joined the Commission in the late 80s, with a

perspective of a new career after several assignments
in the private and public sector.

Throughout the years, I evolved from a typist to a

skilled and appreciated financial agent. I enjoyed
professional mobility and meeting people with diverse
horizons. I particularly enjoyed working near a
popular square in a cosmopolitan area, and in a highly
interesting policy DG.

I used to work in the central financial unit in an

expanding DG. I had a marvellous and intelligent
Head of Unit, and contributed to the unit’s output by
anticipating, fine-tuning, making proposals. After
several years, internal mobility brought us a new Head
of Unit, with new rules; this meant no longer an “open
door” policy, no longer a Head of Unit to stand by for
any question. Some sub-layers in the unit organisation
were created. A strong favouritism also entered the
unit, and if one of the favourites complained, you
could be sure to get in trouble, which happened to me.

From that point in time, I had no life anymore. The

troika Head of Unit/Deputy Head of Unit/Head of

89
Sector cooperated to isolate, destabilise, denigrate and
eliminate me, which finally happened, after being
exposed to that situation for one year, and also
because of lack of support from higher senior
management, the HR Business Correspondent, the
Mediation Service and the Medical Service.

The strategy was to first give me no work in an ever

busy unit, then, after half a year or so, give me
repetitive uninteresting tasks, ensure that no team
meetings were held when I was in the office, or
organise intimidating bilateral meetings with the Head
of Unit. She asked me to see the Commission’s internal
psychosocial services, without indicating a specific
reason. The Head of Unit suddenly started
micromanaging; for example, she rejected my requests
for training (while having no tasks, I preferred to take
a positive action and applied for trainings), refused the
compensation of overtime accumulated before in the
extremely busy end-of-year period. The Head of Sector
became very difficult in the relationship: nice in the
morning, 10 minutes later aggressive, and then friendly
again just to turn hostile immediately after. I tried not
to take it personally, but in the end, all things added
up and became too much.

When addressed, the HR services advised: “Have a

look in Sysper”; the higher senior management
proposed a move to the archives.
When applying for posts, I found out in one case, that
my Head of Unit had diabolised me towards the Head
of the new unit interested in hiring me; this shocked a
colleague from the new unit so much that he called it a
“sabotage”. This is the only case I was sure about a
sabotage, but other interviews were sometimes so
weird, that possibly the same scenario had happened
in more than one cases.

Another clash occurred later, when I asked the

Mediation Service for help, in the absence of
communication possibilities with the management, as
the Head of Unit was on a personal leave for a month.
The Mediation Service acted in accordance with high
senior management’s proposal and forced a transfer to
the archives. There I was “welcomed” in an office too
small for three persons: two colleagues working there
at the desk already, near the tiny windows, so that I
had finally to sit with my back to them facing the wall
in front of me.

Two days in that situation without a prospect for a

constructive dialogue made me break down. A burn-
out level 7 was diagnosed, and a long-term absence
followed.

After several months on sick leave, the Medical Service

decided to make me work half-time, which I refused. I
got an “expertise” by a “neutral” imposed expert, who

91
had already been subject to questions from the
European Parliament. One hour and a half of useless
conversation with that “expert” took place, e.g., about
my personal life (which I did not want to go into
details about), insinuations that I tried to delude him,
the “expert” declared me fully valid. Back at the
workplace, I asked for a meeting with the Head of the
Medical Control Team, who agreed to prescribe me a
medical part-time. The day after I went to see my
psychiatrist who declared me, at that point in time,
fully invalid. I never heard from the Medical Service
again.

As the only way out, I saw early retirement; maybe that

was the aim of the unit management from the
beginning. I was – in any case – already replaced in my
functions, upfront my departure. It was quite striking
to see the story of a Contract Agent, and other persons
harassed by the same person, as the “strategy” was
always the same: micromanagement, bilateral
meetings, isolation, taking away work, adding a new
recruit, mental violence, etc.

I have asked the Health and Accident Insurance Unit

and PMO for the recognition of burnout as a
professional disease (due to harassment). An
administrative inquiry took place, but despite similar
cases under the same management (happening before
and after my case), the assessment seems to go in the
direction of an “ambitious Head of Unit putting people
under stress” (instead of checking the harassment
process).

Now, I am retired and do not have to worry anymore

about pushy attitudes from the Medical Service, and
could, finally, recover, as far as possible, from the harm
done. However, HR management practices and how
Commission staff is treated have left a bitter taste
behind.

93
 A perfect system to keep everyone in
check

I come from one of the East-Central European

countries marked by two totalitarian systems in the
20th century. I was a young adult when the communist
regime broke down. I was raised and educated as a
critically thinking person, with a strong historical
awareness of the evil done to people by the totalitarian
rulers. I grew up longing for freedom and justice and
living in dignity as the highest common goods worth
to fight for. In the new reality after 1989, I found
myself in a professional life. I set up an own
organisation and run it for almost 15 years. My
activities contributed to the efforts in my country
aiming to rebuild the unity of Europe, closing the gaps
in the awareness of neighbouring countries about each
other, filling in “blind spots” in the history and revising
stereotypes. My country was particularly hard hit by
the Nazi occupation and there was no chance to
launch a bilateral dialogue between the neighbours
before the Iron Curtain had fallen for almost half a
century.

When I considered my mission was accomplished I

moved on, and the next stop was Europe; I saw my
task in building good relationships between the
nations within a united Europe. I came to Brussels and
passed the entry exams to the EU institutions in the
first merit group. Shortly after that, I was employed as
a permanent official in the first DG and started
working on an interesting project, deploying my full
potential and enthusiasm. My broad professional
background so far allowed me to develop novel,
creative ideas. Usually, this was recognised and helped
me to progress at work. But at the Commission, it was
different. I was told for instance to limit my efficiency,
because this could make other colleagues feel bad,
who did not achieve similar results. The aim was just
to keep everything at average level or below. I
experienced many such situations. Later I should learn
that the quality and results at work are somehow
secondary; there was always a power game going on,
particularly for “visibility files”, which absorbed most
of the time and energy.
I was also shocked to discover that one of the EU
politicians was actually a former Soviet and so was his
entourage immediately populating high-ranking posts.
There was definitely not merit that counted for this
kind of people but mastering with perfection the
socio-technique of power. It happened that I had to
face one of them. Therefore, my successful project
recognised by Member States and stakeholders in the
context of a major EU legislative initiative got
destroyed because of …slides. The “Powerpoint king” in
a senior management position decided on a certain

95
number of slides for a presentation to be given by me.
It was enough to suggest a different number of slides
and offer to show how this could work, to make a huge
issue out of that and antagonise everyone involved.
This person did not even shy away to organise for me a
trial in a Soviet style expecting self-accusation. This
cost me burnout and I had to interrupt my work for
several months not knowing what to do next. Needless
to say that the “Powerpoint king” has made a “great
career” in the meantime, further climbing up the
ladder with the help of his supporters.

After six months, I finally found a person who helped

me, having experienced similar things from this
particular clique. This person could understand what
happened to me. I started working in a new DG.
I got quite quickly familiar with new files, and set to
work with commitment and enthusiasm. I liked this
particular job and got recognition from stakeholders
and colleagues again. At a certain point, however,
when I dealt with a “high visibility” project, something
strange happened. A colleague from another unit in
the same directorate dealing with another part of the
project, started to produce obstacles. For instance, she
made sure no budget was allocated to my activities, or
some strange last minutes changes were “requested by
the Cabinet” which caused a lot of stress and work in
haste to get things done in time. I informed my line
manager since this put the whole undertaking in
danger, but he did not want to intervene. Finally, I
managed to overcome the obstacles and my project
became a highlight, praised even during the respective
College meeting, as I was told. It was interesting that
during the event one of the participants told me: “You
will certainly get rewarded in your career for such an
achievement”. However, precisely the opposite
happened.
The very colleague who made obstacles arrived in my
own unit, first as Deputy Head of Unit (and later, after
another reorganisation, even as Head of Unit). She did
not omit any occasion to continue her obstructions.
Two years after the successful project I had to deal
with something similar. The Deputy started to “give
instructions” to an external contractor I had been
working with, all behind my back. She ordered for
instance that brochures with good practices, which I
had been working on for months and which had been
printed for this very purpose, should not be
prominently displayed on a shelf to take away. Instead,
one copy had to be tied up to a pillar “for viewing
only”, so that the invited stakeholders featured in this
brochure “do not steal them and then throw them
away”. She gave instructions that a documentary shot
in five countries from tax payers’ money also featuring
the award-winning projects and stakeholders was last
minute taken from the plenary agenda and shown

97
instead − without sound (!) − on the screens in the
corridor of the building. Usually, such screens served
to display the agenda of meetings. I cannot describe
the expression in the faces of some of the invited
guests whose achievements were meant to be
celebrated; some of them even openly “attacked” me,
asking “what all this was supposed to mean?”. I felt
embarrassed and ashamed and did not know what to
answer.
I was regularly omitted even when tasks for which I
was responsible were at stake. My portfolio became
rather tiny, and only thanks to my pro-active approach
I could keep my expertise and networks. This
particular colleague behaved ambivalently; she even
pretended to be my “friend” at times, particularly in
the presence of other colleagues. But I felt how fake all
this was. I noticed that even in a Deputy Head of Unit
role, she managed to expand her power with all its
attributes. She had at her own disposal a secretary, a
bigger office, and usually other colleagues had to seek
her “approval”.

When there was still a Head of Unit, I could rely on a

kind of buffer and get protection, but things
dramatically changed when she was appointed as the
Head of my unit. I remember that on the day when I
received this information I came home from work and
went straight to bed, being completely paralysed. I was
not able to prepare dinner for my family. There was a
strong physical reaction of my body. The next day,
following a message of the Director General addressing
everyone who may not feel comfortable in a new unit
after the changes, I immediately contacted HR services
and signalled that I had to change jobs, because of this
particular person. I had few conversations with an HR
colleague who showed understanding and asked me to
consider in which unit I would like to work. I indicated
three units. But time flew and nothing happened. In
the meantime, I worked on files from the previous year
and tried to avoid interactions with my perpetrator
while waiting for a new job. It did not take long for my
oppressor to become active again. This time, as the
main author of the concept note, I was supposed to go
on mission to a prep-meeting including a “train the
trainers” event in preparation of a large conference
scheduled to take place in one of the Member States.
The agenda for the prep-meeting and subsequent
training was worked out with the Member State
authorities and set up weeks before that. My
participation in the meeting as a Commission
representative and trainer was agreed internally within
the DG, since the project involved also other units. So
my name appeared in the programme that was sent
around. One day before the meeting – after many
reminders – I learned that the Head of Unit rejected
my mission request in MIPS in the last moment

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without even talking to me. Therefore, I could not go
on mission to participate in the meeting, neither were
any other arrangements made for my replacement. All
my attempts to solve the situation failed. My
perpetrator managed to show how she can “rule” about
me, making me appear as someone unreliable vis-à-vis
all the people I worked with, as if my word given
would not count anything. I was again deeply ashamed
for the place I had been working at, for the European
Commission, where things like this could happen.
Later on, I was told that there was a huge
consternation among the participants in the meeting,
including trainers that I was supposed to train, when
they finally learned in the morning on the meeting day
that I would not come. They learned this from me;
nobody else made attempts to inform them about the
situation. Then they had to rely on a private laptop as
a remedy, to connect with the Commission and ask
what they were supposed to do. They had to sit on the
floor or knee around a chair where the laptop was
placed, to get in touch with someone in the
Commission and inquire about the concept of the
conference. The situation was perceived as highly
embarrassing.
I went to my family doctor who spent more than two
hours listening to the story. He told me that I was not
the only one from the Commission coming to him
because of harassment and he wondered: “What is
actually going on in this place?” I went on sick leave
for several weeks because of psychological harassment.
After coming back I thought by myself: “Enough is
enough”. I decided to launch a formal Art. 24
procedure against the Head of Unit.
I informed the DG’s senior management on this
intention. Initially, they seemed to show some
understanding, though they were advising me not to
launch the formal procedure, and telling me that I
would – quasi in exchange – have a choice which new
unit to move in. But suddenly things changed and I
just got a formal decision in writing about my transfer
in the “interest of the service”. When I tried to change
this decision, stressing that this particular unit chosen
for transfer was not my preference, since it did not
match my profile and neither its Head nor me wanted
this, I was put under incredible pressure. The Director
General, who liked to present herself to the outside
world as “very human”, appeared as a hideous bully
within the four walls of her office. She behaved like
Caesar Caligula, totally unpredictable and feared, as it
seemed. First, I had to wait for almost one and a half
hours for my confirmed appointment. Then I heard
from her that, “nobody actually wanted to work with
me”, so I could be happy to be accepted at all by such a
“great manager”, and she did not intend to change the
decision. I had to interrupt the meeting, leaving the

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room almost crying. I have not experienced such a
direct, almost physical pressure during my entire life. I
prepared a note from this meeting and included it into
the documentation of my Art. 24 request for
assistance. There was zero reaction to that note; HR
services have not even commented upon the bullying
behaviour of this person, as it would have been
nothing.

It appeared that all this happened to me because I

launched an Art. 24 procedure against harassment. I
would eventually understand better the warning, not
to complain and not to make use of the statutory
rights, in the months to come.

In the new unit the harassment and stigmatisation

continued with subsequent CDR reports full of
defamations and lies. When I appealed them, they
were even worsened by the Director, who acted as an
appeal assessor and who did not hide that he wanted
to get rid of me. His goal was to force me to leave not
only the unit and directorate, but even the DG. So in
his written comments to the CDRs he “invited central
services” to deal with my case. He also managed to
block my career for several years with no promotion,
presenting me as incapable of doing my job. To one of
the meetings with him, which was supposed to be a
“dialogue with the appeal assessor”, I invited a
colleague of my choice as an accompanying person.
The Director – being a good lawyer – always invited
someone from the HR team. (He did so even during
the first days of confinement due to the COVID-19
pandemic, where the talk had to take place by phone.)
I prepared a pile of documentation and proposed to go
through each allegation one by one. But nobody was
interested in facts; instead it was again a kind of trial
where those on the other side of the table (the director
and a person from HR unit) interrupted me in an
interrogative manner showing hostile, offensive
behaviour. Finally, the appeal assessor concluded the
meeting, saying that he actually “knew who I really
was”, and his HR assistant exclaimed that I failed with
my Art. 24 procedure, which I thought was a
confidential information. My invited colleague had to
witness all this and was shocked. Later, after the
meeting, she warned me: “Those people do have power
to destroy you” and she urged me to “try to escape”.

My request for assistance because of psychological

harassment based on Art. 24 Staff Regulations turned
out to be a farce, indeed. The procedure was handled
by a unit in DG HR: I submitted a several hundred-
page documentation with statements of witnesses,
countless e-mails and other evidence. It was not easy
to collect all this; when approached, the colleagues
feared that this may have negative effects on their
own careers. Generally, it was difficult to approach
someone with such a request. After that many

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pretended not to know me any more. But the case
handler in DG HR did not contact any of the
witnesses, who finally agreed to give testimonies, and
did not invite me to a hearing even though I asked for
it. I only received in writing results of the preliminary
assessment, which I had to comment on. In this first
preliminary assessment the case handler considered
the medical statement by my doctor as a “beginning of
proof”. Later this sentence disappeared altogether and
my case was considered as a “non-case”. I got a
decision stating, that there was no beginning of proof
regarding harassment and consequently I was not
allowed to call the situation “harassment”. It looked to
me like DG HR was defending the harassers at any
cost, instead of ensuring protection.

In parallel to my Art. 24 request for assistance I

launched another procedure against the flawed CDR
contribution provided by my oppressor for the period I
was with her in the same unit. The same case handler
dealt with my CDR complaint. To my big surprise this
time my complaint was acknowledged, and according
to the decision the report had to be rewritten. Since
time passed and nothing happened afterwards, I
inquired who was going to rewrite the report. To my
surprise again, I was informed that the very same
reporting officer who drafted the report, in this case
my oppressor, had to rewrite it. She did it three times,
each time even worsening the content. When I
objected, the responsible in DG HR replied: “Who said
that the rewritten report should be in your favour?” He
further advised me to launch another Art. 90
complaint against the “rewritten” report. I did so, and
this time, the complaint − handled again by the same
unit and the same case handler − was dismissed. This
meant that the very same instance cancelled its own
prior decision. I felt like in the absurd theatre. So after
all these legal steps and months passed, I ended up
with an even worse CDR report as before that. I was
“given a lesson” to never again try challenging my
CDR.
The situation was similar when I appealed the two
subsequent CDRs worsened by the Director-appeal
assessor. This opened up my eyes. The European
Commission, the core institution of the European
Union, the “Guardian of the Treaty” has been
disregarding the rule of law. It has created an abusive
system where those in managerial positions have
unlimited power, they stand “above the law”, are
“untouchables”; on the other hand, those who dare to
speak up against the abuses and make use of their
statutory rights are deliberately, systematically,
brutally crushed. I noticed that there was an unwritten
rule according to which one can only hope to survive
when remaining silent, putting the head down,
accepting the wrongdoing from a manager, accepting
the system. I was shocked. This reminded me of the

105
not so distant past in a communist country. Did I feel
fear? Yes, I did. I sometimes felt this cold sweat
running down my neck.

My oppressor could not hide the satisfaction, when we

met by chance in the garage. She said that she “would
really hope for me I would be able to find any job at
the Commission”. At times I was quite isolated, it
happened that I did not talk to anyone for days. The
colleagues now tried to avoid my presence and not to
be seen with me. I also got little, quite simple tasks
compared to my experience and I often had to invent
my work myself, or volunteer when any occasion
arose. At times, I felt ashamed to have become so
“invisible” for the others. I lost contact to my
networks, I could not use my expertise, I started to
lose my self-confidence.
Several times I tried to change jobs, applying for
vacancies in other DGs. This was considered as the
only way to flee oppression. I was invited to interviews,
which usually went well. Several times I was even
selected for the job, only to learn few days later that it
was decided not to fill in the post finally, or the profile
of the post had been changed all of a sudden, or the
vacancy was cancelled altogether. It happened to me
too often to believe it was true. Later on I should learn
that HR services are in close contact and exchange
information about candidates from other DGs,
warning each other about the “black sheep”. It was
clear to me that I was blacklisted. I experienced the
following situation: a Head of Unit called me after an
interview to enthusiastically announce that I was
selected and would perfectly fit into his unit; the day
after he wrote in an e-mail that unfortunately, the
vacancy was cancelled. When I called him back asking
what was going on, he told me, not being able to hide
his nervousness: “I am not alone here”. I was trapped
in a system, which worked perfectly to keep everyone
in check. There is zero confidentiality in the
Commission and abuses of personal data are a
common practice.
I have always been a hard worker; work has for me a
great value. I had chosen to work in a public
administration assuming that it would be a work for a
common good. I do believe that many colleagues in
the Commission think in a similar way. But not the
corrupted system as such; once I heard from a Head of
Unit that it is not enough to work hard, be efficient,
committed, and to achieve good results. One has to
“please hierarchy” in the first place. I heard this
expression several times later on. My oppressor
followed this rule perfectly and she even used this
wording at occasions. Admittedly, she had been
rewarded for this approach. So the source of the so-
called good career was not merit but favouritism. One
had to be “favoured” by someone to get a position in

107
the management, a more interesting task, get
promoted in general. So I could see how some people
around were put on the promotion list every second
year for instance. The others not. Some made a “blitz-
career” from a desk officer to a director and further
within few years, pushed on the ladder by a powerful
promoter. The others not. It was disgusting to observe
how “pleasing the hierarchy” looked in practice.

Oppressions at work cost me many sleepless nights,

sick-leaves, burnouts, and all this impaired my family
life, too. How often came I home in despair, not able
to properly care for my children? I tried to hide all this
from them, but I think my children sensed what was
going on. Sometimes – when looking back – I wonder
how I could bear the exposure to all these bad things,
and I do believe, it was thanks to and because of my
family: I thought by myself, this is not a world I would
like to see my children growing up, and then living and
working.
I have always been a book reader, and it was actually a
book, which told me what to do. A philosopher wrote
about “anger and forgiveness” and the way ahead when
wrong is done to someone. I read that wrongdoing
cannot be undone. And that in a democratic world
democratic institutions are the place where
wrongdoers are judged and sanctioned. But the
survivor of harassment does have an important role to
play. S/he can do something about this, so that
wrongdoing does not happen to others. This was
another eye-opener: I realised that my role is to make
sure the European Commission as a public institution
must not be corrupt and has to follow the rule of law. I
knew that I could help other colleagues who suffered
like I did. I looked around and saw that there were
many such colleagues, more than one could imagine.
And each of them had a similar story to tell. I knew
that each of us individually could be crushed by the
corrupted system – still strong enough, having at its
disposal the whole administrative machinery, a lot of
money and an army of lawyers, that will defend the
crime and abuses and confuse it with defending the
institution. However, when we come together, when
we join forces, when we speak up, it would no longer
be so easy to silence us. I joined the Harassment
Watch Network and started to act.

I do believe that history shapes our consciousness. I do

believe that the history of my country has strongly
influenced my actions now. Today, I see things much
clearer than 15 years ago when I came to Brussels to
work at the Commission, and I believe that this old
Europe is full of discrimination, national egoism,
dominant power relations − against my own/our
beliefs and dreams we had and still have in the East-
Central part of the continent. All this is reflected in the
Commission like in a nutshell. I found myself in a role,

109
which I have not chosen myself, but so was the
experience of many generations in my country that
opposed the regime and built the foundations for a
new life in dignity and freedom, against any reason
and against reality, one could say. And yet, they
succeeded.
 A

111
Appeal procedure
 The seven stations of my Via Dolorosa

I am a woman, spouse, mother, and friend of many

human beings of all beliefs, origins, and ages. By
profession, I am a lawyer. I chose law to be better able
to defend those in need, who cannot speak up for
themselves, in particular people, whose most basic
rights are violated and who are victims of social
injustice. I chose to work for the European
Commission, because I believe in the European idea, in
the need to work together to maintain peace, to
preserve the environment and to protect human
rights. I see the need to co-create rules for ensuring
such a peaceful togetherness and to safeguard their
implementation, as well as the need to, directly or
indirectly, support people and authorities in observing
these rules and finding new ways forward. These are all
tasks of the European Commission. I therefore
consider it for me the ideal place to work.
I have been working for the institutions for 20 years,
first as a national expert then as an official. After a
spell as a manager, I preferred to work as an
administrator, again.

My pathway through the institutions has been a Via

Dolorosa of seven stations of psychological
harassment. I was the target of harassment by one

113
director, five heads of unit, and one deputy head of
unit, with the acquiescence of their management. My
Calvary was only made bearable thanks to the
overwhelming majority of my team mates and co-
workers, who supported me morally and often even
spoke up for me, though that made their lives more
difficult, too. And I was able to preserve my sanity and
belief in myself, thanks to my loving family, my –
though sometimes wavering – belief in the European
idea and the need to contribute to it, as well as a
psycho-therapy, and four blissful periods of co-creative
and highly effective and efficient work, sprinkled in
between on my path. The last blissful spell started this
year and I am slowly regaining confidence that I am a
person, who can work well and bring things forward
together with management, without being (ab)used,
seen as a threat, envied, and/or considered incapable
of accepting authority.

Station number 1: I am a young seconded national

expert (SNE), new to the institution, and detecting
many signs of mismanagement, when my team is
merged with other teams to form a new unit. The new
Head of Unit was given that task against his will, and
he has a clear preference for the topics and the part of
the unit he was in charge of already beforehand. We,
the others, are exposed to choleric shouting episodes,
and are under enormous pressure to apply all kinds of
novel templates, IT tools, and reduce the backlog
accumulated over the years. The more “foul files” one
has, the worse one is considered. I have many “foul
files” and keep detecting more. Within months many
colleagues from my former team “flee” the new unit.
There is a clear divide between the newly recruited
colleagues and us “left-overs”. As an SNE I cannot
move, I am told… The many issues I unveil increase the
nervousness of the Head of Unit. However, slowly but
steadily I gain his confidence, he calms down and is
deeply moved when one morning I thank him, because
for 13 weeks in a row he has not shouted at me. At the
end of the 2 years as an SNE, we part with mutual
respect, but his – now rarer – choleric spells still
bother me and leave scars.
Station number 2: Meanwhile, I have passed an EU
competition and after more than a year of search, I
start my first job as an AD. However, with no prior
experience in this particular field of work, I cannot
immediately fulfil my Head of Unit’s expectations.
From day 4 on, the Head of Unit is deeply
disappointed by me and he lets me feel this on a
regular, sometimes daily basis. The trigger is that on
this day I come to work at 09:45 a.m. I have left a
message explaining that I am stuck in my bank to sign
the documents needed for receiving my salary and will
be slightly late. But when I have just arrived in my
office and turned on the PC, my Head of Unit storms
in and warns me that I could “easily be faster out of the

115
Commission than it took me to get in”. From then on,
nothing I do is acceptable to him. (Luckily, in that
Directorate General the second half of the probation
period was regularly done in a different team, where I
received excellent references. This was blissful period
number 1.)
The Head of Unit accuses me of doing a bad job,
despite positive quality revisions by experienced
colleagues and my own work in quality assurance
groups. He punishes me for taking a bi-weekly training
course encouraged by the Director General, and gives
me more tasks with short deadlines on the training
days. In my first full CDR, my Head of Unit claims that
factual elements of my self-assessment (delivery within
the deadlines and in line with the quality standards),
were “not fully adequate”. He thus accuses me of not
saying the truth.

I am not the only victim of my Head of Unit’s

harassment; within 2 years, 10 colleagues leave the
team. When after 2 years I finally find a job elsewhere
(not easy with such a first CDR), my Head of Unit
behaves very contradictorily. He calls my future Head
of Unit and warns him that I am a bad, sneaky person.
At the same time, he declares that I am “indispensable”
for another 3 months, while internally forcing my
immediate departure…
He frontloads me with an extreme heap of non-urgent
work so I have to work late hours every day and can
only pack up on my last Sunday. He holds an
intimidating “dialogue” with me, after all other staff
has left and we were alone on the floor. He considers
me to be a bad person and a huge deception
professionally. He basically regrets the day he
recruited me. He also claims that I am sneaky and
cannot be trusted, because I applied elsewhere without
having told him so beforehand and because I
contacted the human resources department, asking for
help. I take notes in this dialogue, as for me writing
down key words is a way to “digest” difficult situations.
This makes him furious and for a moment I am scared
of him, because, as on other such occasions, he turns
all red with anger and his face and the veins on his
neck swell.
Instance number 2 reopens the scars inflicted by my
former Head of Unit. But this time, it is much worse
than the first time: no mutually respectful departure,
but hatred on his side and pain and insecurity on
mine.
During the following 2 ½ years in the new unit I regain
confidence. I become Acting Head of Unit. I am asked
to become Deputy Head of Unit in another unit and I
accept. All seems great, harassment a thing of the
past…

117
Station number 3: I take up my tasks a bit wearily, as
I find out that I am the first to inform part of my future
hierarchy that this job was offered to me. Bit by bit I
realise that my placement as Deputy Head of Unit
serves more than one purpose… Basically, my job is
threefold:
There is the official job of Deputy Head of Unit. As
agreed, I am in charge of 16 colleagues (about half of
the unit) and of all related managerial tasks. I insist on
this, because I want to find out, whether this would be
a job I could do well and enjoy.
Then there is the job of “shadow Head of Unit” in
charge of the other half of the unit. This is, because the
Head of Unit is mostly busy with other things. I do not
mind, as it is interesting and I like both my official and
my unofficial jobs and learn a lot of new things.
Sometimes it is not easy. I have to tell people that they
will lose their job as it is, and that they may even have
to leave. I support them in finding a job elsewhere in
the DG that fits their skill set or job scout for them in
other services and institutions. I listen, I guide, I share,
I put myself in the feet of “my” staff by doing their
respective job for a day, to see what it means and how
it feels. I collaborate across the DG on the
improvement of certain services and workflows. I use
the potential of “my” people and my analytical skills to
the full. I am trusted, recognised and respected by
staff, peers and management across the DG. I work too
long hours and too hard, but I enjoy this part of my
work.

And, finally, my third job is that of being a pawn in a

chess game between my top hierarchy. They
apparently compete with and intensely dislike each
other. This job finally becomes hell. It is this third job
that wears me out and down and that makes me
despair. I swallow so much poison and am so
weakened by this toxic atmosphere that my body gives
cancerous tumours the chance to grow to an
impressive size. According to the oncologist, the
surgeon and the gastroenterologist, who treat me, only
my generally positive attitude enabled my body to
keep the cancer under control and metastases at bay.
According to the experts, mental and emotional
suffering or strengths truly have an affect on cancer.

Basically, the “mission” of one of my senior managers

is to prove that not only my Head of Unit, but in
particular me, were a bad choice by the superior, who
nominated us, and that we are incapable of doing our
respective jobs. For instance, his assistant, in copy of
all my correspondence going beyond the unit, was
busy spotting mistakes and reporting them. After
many years in the DG this senior manager has built up
an imperium of protégées, including outside the DG,
often people with some weaknesses, who serve him as

119
faithful vassals. He is a genius at “divide and reign” and
taking advantage of people’s weaknesses.
He cleverly uses my Head of Unit’s disinterest and lack
of willingness to stand up for her staff. Thus, she just
stands by, when one day he comes to my office and, in
front of her, shouts me down and forbids me to
continue working on a topic, which he uses to candidly
distribute favours among his protégées. Then, right
afterwards, and without having asked my opinion on
this, my Head of Unit reports this incident to her
superior. As a result, the same day her superior
convokes me, stating: “I hear you are being harassed?
Tell me all about it! Do you want me to do something
about it?” Though I long for protection, to the visible
consternation of this top manager, I refuse to be used
as a pawn and am evasive about calling a spade a
spade. I feel that it is not so much out of interest in my
well-being that I am being asked, but because the top
manager wants to get rid of the senior manager.
Due to some health issues, in January that year I have
been recommended to take a thorough medical exam
and got a medical appointment beginning of March. I
postpone it to Mid-May, because the March date does
not suit my Head of Unit. When I finally have the
exam, the cancer has to be removed on the spot. I had
ignored the increasing indigestion due to the stress,
swallowing my pain and tears… I inform my Head of
Unit that same evening by SMS that I have to undergo
preparative exams for a major surgery. Her reaction is
telling: She is sorry to hear that, gives her OK for the
absence at a meeting the next day, and expresses her
hope that after the surgery I will be back “in time for
her summer holidays to ensure her replacement as
foreseen…”.
I finally make an appointment with my top senior
manager and tell her that being seriously ill and being
unhappy on the job, is too much, and that now, after
all, I would like to take her up on her offer. I request a
move in the interest of the service away from this for
me apparently unhealthy working environment.
I learn from this experience that there are many
reasons for harassment, but a constant root cause
seems to be the Commission’s recruitment and people
management system. In this system, on the one hand,
humans are not perceived in their complexity, but seen
as “resources” with certain sets of skills. The choice of
staff systematically favours certain attributes like IQ,
competitiveness and self-centredness, which 
cumulated  are highly disruptive. Imagine a class of
competitive A grade students who are “full of
themselves” and all want to become the class
representative, cost it what may, with a teacher, who
skilfully plays them against each other and harasses
those, who are best liked. When the school inspector

121
comes, no one will speak up against the teacher. And,
if a bright likeable newcomer appears, they will join
forces against him/her.

Thus, the selection of managers is not based on

leadership skills and talents, but on the idea that being
a leader makes you a more valuable person, as well as
on nepotism, competitiveness, national quota and
interdependency. Being competitive they will have a
tendency to envy others, and many of them will
heavily depend on those who made them what they
are. As a result, many leaders are caught up in a
system, in which they cling onto their position, which
they confuse with their value as a human being, while
their teams’ workloads explode. Some of their team
members collapse, in others it brings out the worst.
To stay in power, even if you feel awkward and
inadequate in your position, “divide and reign” has
proven to be a probate means throughout human
history, and it also works very well in the Commission.
Another means to maintain power is solidifying the
underlying structure by creating rules and procedures
that maintain them, and a corps spirit among those
belonging to the same nepotistic network. Both can
also be observed in the Commission.

Thus, only few will become leaders, who actually have

leadership qualities or at least human qualities that
enable them to not only accept the individuality of
their staff members, but actually appreciate and use
these for the good of their team.
The other element I realised is that the multi-
culturalism in the Commission can be seen as an
enrichment (my perception), but also as a threat (by
some), because it requires flexibility and openness,
self-awareness and self-respect, as well as a basic set of
rules that form the contrat social to which all who join
the community have to adhere. This should be the
Staff Regulations and the basic European human rights
and values, and, for the rest, the respect  and why not
joy  of being different. However, I became
increasingly aware that colleagues and bosses put me
in boxes, perceived and treated me “as the one with
the nationality X”. In some ways this is funny, because
I have a nationality of country X, being from a
minority from countries Y and Z, married to a non-
European for so long that I have integrated habits and
views from his country of origin. This makes the
attribution to the box “X” even more ridiculous.

At the same time, some of the colleagues who tried to

fit me into this box, also attempted to impose their
mono-cultural background on me. Thus, e.g., I was
admonished by several people from the same national
background, where this was apparently taught as a
profound “truth” to certain stratospheres of society
and through hierarchical schooling systems, where

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teachers are “little gods”, mistakes are ridiculed, and
thinking out of the box is not welcome. “Never admit a
mistake!”: They insisted that admitting one’s mistakes
was the biggest mistake one can make, a weakness, a
factor disqualifying you from becoming a people
manager. What a shock for someone like me, who
grew up in a culture where it was considered a virtue
to admit to one’s mistake as early as possible in order
to correct them, before they grew big, and this was
inculcated in every family member from early
childhood. Another one of these “truths” was: “Never
openly contradict your hierarchy, in particular in the
presence of others. Just do as they say!” – “Even, if they
are wrong or it is risky for the institution?” – “Sure. In
any case. At most, you can voice a differing opinion
three times. And if it is really serious: do not challenge
them openly but go behind their back.” Again, this
contradicted my teachings and (family) culture, where
pointing out risks and mistakes is a duty, and going
behind the back is a no-go, unless the other really does
not listen and you need help or the risks at stake are
high.

Station Number 4: Still in the hospital after my

successful surgery, I am offered a transfer as policy
officer to another unit within the same DG. The tasks
are interesting and dear to me. I do accept. But I
should have thought twice and known by then: it is
not the tasks that are the most important element for
job satisfaction, but the surrounding. My new Head of
Unit is an ally of old of my former senior manager. The
“divide and reign” pattern of stations 1, 2 and 3
reappears. Here it is even reflected in the office
distribution. On the Head of Unit’s side of the corridor
are the favourites, e.g., the ones who go with her for a
coffee every morning… The rest of us are on the other
side of the corridor. The dynamics of “divide and
reign” work effectively. Among those on the “wrong
side of the corridor”, there is one with a limited
contract, who wants to secure the next one and thus
tries to wiggle her way into the group of the favourites,
cost it what may. There are also those who have
already given up and count the days until their
pension. And there are two of us, who actually want to
improve things. On the “right side of the corridor”
there is the Deputy Head of Unit who seems to fear
competition, because I was in this position before and
because I know the subject matter extremely well, and
on top of it, I follow strict ethical standards like
avoiding conflicts of interest, which she does not. Even
worse, and although this is not necessarily mutual, I
am appreciated by our top manager. There is a deep
mistrust against me, and the Head of Unit censors my
emails and even contacts (“You may not call X from
DG Y without me in the room!”, “Before contacting A,
you have to ask me and we agree on the line to take”,
etc.). To this extreme, this is new to me.

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In the beginning, I am not so worried, because my stay
at this station is meant to last no more than a few
months, just enough to apply elsewhere. In the end, it
takes me nearly two years. Two years of tears, of
suffering, of stubbornly performing well. I toil on, even
though my impaired eyesight makes working with big
excel sheets particularly difficult. Instead of empathy, I
am asked for medical certificates proving my difficulty;
instead of generosity, whenever I make mistakes for
the abovementioned reason, the reproach that I lack
the necessary “rigour” is sure to come. Again, my CDR
is used to slight me, carefully, skilfully putting me
down. It is a CDR that does not facilitate a move to
another DG…
At this station, I learn a lesson only because colleagues
opened my eyes to it. Apparently, if, like me, you are a
happy human being, well-liked by most, often
consulted by colleagues, and do a good job, even
despite difficulties you encounter, this may be a thorn
in the eye of those around you, in particular your
manager or wannabe managers, who lack some or all
of these attributes. Of course I knew that jealousy
exists and that it can make people do mean things to
each other. But I had never thought that I could be
envied for simply doing my job with conviction,
commitment and as best as I could. The saying: “Do
good and good will be done to you” does not seem to
always work and apparently may even be turned
around. Though, again, I cried many a tear, became
less and less efficient, because every censored e-mail
took me ages to draft, and though I suffered some
depressive spells, I never lost the conscience of the
reasons for my basic happiness nor my empathy for
others. Why not be happy to be alive, relatively
healthy and living in a society with a good healthcare
system, surrounded by loving family and friends? Why
not be empathetic, when that enriches your so much?
But my harassment wounds remain open, my scars
deepen, my insecurity mounts. I start to “secretly”
meet colleagues in their DG, because I am not allowed
to speak to them freely, to better explain what was
difficult to explain by (censored) mails. It pays off
professionally, as I am, e.g., able to bring a difficult and
complex legislative proposal through an Inter Service
Consultation in record time and without a negative
opinion. But it changes my behaviour. Sometimes, I
start being sarcastic and cynical, a character streak
which is foreign to me and saddens me. At home, I
sometimes have to be reminded that the symbolic wall
of life was still white with just a little black speck on it,
not the other way around.
Finally, I succeed in moving on to the job of my
dreams. I got that job, although for some strange
reason the HR services of my new DG (the one where I
had been an SNE years before) interferes. They call my

127
former Head of Unit (Station 3) with a clearly negative
preconception, and ask my future Head of Unit,
whether he is sure he wants me, because I “seem to be
not reliable, difficult to handle, not resilient, and
lacking rigour”. My advantage and luck: the new Head
of Unit knows me and the quality of my work from my
SNE times, when he was still Deputy Head of Unit.

The dark clouds pass, I regain confidence. Writing a

mail takes the time I need to type it, no longer the
time to battle with doubts. All goes well: the job itself
fits me like a glove, the team, the Deputy Head of Unit.
The Head of Unit only rarely meddles with my work,
and when we do not agree on something (especially,
when he clearly favours particular stakeholders or
particular origins), we have an open exchange about it.
Not that I always “get it my way”, of course, but he
steers away from truly problematic favouritism with
regard to my files or at least agrees on a line that is
legally acceptable, though, from my point of view, not
always ethical. I feel fulfilled, I excel more than ever
before. I have to learn completely new, very technical
issues, but after a year, my interlocutors take me for a
professional in that field. I am, i.a., in charge of a team
of some 15 external experts from one Member State,
and later on more experts from other Member States.
We have a trusting relationship characterised by
mutual respect. I become a kind of shadow Deputy,
when the Head of Unit leaves and the Deputy replaces
him. She was the best (acting) Head of Unit I ever had.
In parallel, a new Director General brings in his
“Court” a host of people, including assistants, Heads of
Unit, Senior Advisers, even contractual staff (son of
the best friend…), who will all make brilliant careers in
the DG. One of “his” Heads of Unit takes over our unit.
In 12 months, we see the new Head of Unit three times:
at the beginning and at the end of his “leadership”
before the units are merged, and for the CDR. He
resides in the former Deputy Director General’s office
and becomes a Director, when the first such post
becomes free. In the beginning we are still surprised,
but somehow sarcasm returns and people start leaving.
Not me. Why would I want to give up my dream job
and a dream Acting Head of Unit, who continues to do
the real job?

Station number 5: The units are merged, our Acting

Head of Unit becomes an advisor, then becomes
Acting again elsewhere. The “son of the best friend” by
now AD, makes a rocket fast career. A new Deputy
Head of Unit arrives. From day one, things go wrong.
He avoids me. He makes appointments with everyone
to talk, but not with me. Instead, I am informed by the
HR unit of a job opening in another unit in the DG and
invited to apply. When I finally get a hold of the
Deputy Head of Unit, the first thing he says to me (and

129
the last thing I am thinking of) is the following: “I
know, you should be sitting here!”. I am baffled. But
his apparent feeling of inadequacy as Deputy Head of
Unit as compared to me makes our relationship toxic.
Any suggestions coming from me are, naturally, not
only refuted but considered rebellious. He does a good
job in reducing the team. Those who cannot take it
anymore, flee; those who love the job too much, like
me, cling onto it until they are pushed out, either by
not prolonging contracts of contractual agents, or
through harassment. Only those who are prepared to
rubber stamp remain.
The Head of Unit remains disinterested, both in the
work content and in his staff. The real problems start,
when yet another protégé of the Director General
becomes the new Head of Unit. He has all the defaults
of his predecessor, but being a protégé and having no
opinion of his own makes it even worse. And I make a
big mistake: instead of giving up this job when I am
still fine, I ignore all signs. I am confident that the
institution cannot want people to leave who do a good
job. I will learn how wrong I am. Lesson learnt: do not
like your job too much. It makes you blind for
harassment and very vulnerable.
So, how do you push out dedicated colleagues, who
love their tasks and therefore are doing an excellent
job and who are well liked? You make their lives
difficult. You invent special rules that only apply to
them, forcing them to do their work in a specific way,
even if this reduces their efficiency and makes it more
costly.

Here a small example, which became a big issue of

“unsubordination”: due to the way I organise my
missions, including week-ends, I am able to visit three
to four projects a week. The costs of my missions are
low, because I use the cheapest means of travel and
accommodation, and, naturally, I declare all costs
carried by third parties and none of the costs incurred
on the week-end site-visits. Over the year, this leaves
me more time for work in the office. When the Deputy
Head of Unit himself goes on mission, he takes three
working days to visit one project. He even goes so far
to instruct colleagues going on mission with him, to
not declare lunches offered and he has a clear
preference for the most expensive hotels possible. So,
this Deputy Head of Unit imposes a rule that only
applies to me: “For health reasons” (since when is he
my physician?), I have to either travel Monday
mornings and Friday afternoons or take half day
holidays on the venue of mission on those days. Thus, I
lose a full working day travelling to and from my final
destination, sometimes having to take expensive
regular airlines, including several transits rather than
inexpensive direct charter flights that only go on week-
ends. Plus my mission schedule get mixed up and site

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visits need to be dropped. The “rules” are further
complicated by unilateral ex post prohibitions to work
on Commission holidays, which are not holidays in the
country of destination, while others, including the
Deputy Head of Unit, are allowed to be on mission on
such days.
I am given extra tasks while reproaching me that the
regular tasks suffer and that I was working too much
and too long hours. I am refused the support of
trainees or other colleagues. Finally, I am asked to
transfer those tasks, in which I was deeply involved,
shortly before their finalisation, to another colleague.
Transferring them means days of hand-over and
delaying finalisation by several months.

The situation culminates in a witch’s hunt, in which I

am accused of “having harassed” the team of experts in
Member State A, by “being aggressive to the degree of
public humiliation”.
This is what I can say about what apparently
happened: One expert complained about me in an
internal meeting that I had humiliated her in public.
Actually, she had – in front of an external project team
– put into question a Commission letter to this team,
in which several costs had been declared unacceptable
based on the technical expertise of her own
organisation. Several times I allowed for a discussion
on the points she raised, although she thereby
contradicted not only her own organisation but the
Commission. Each time, the Commission’s opinion
was upheld. Finally, I cut further discussions short by
saying that I was not prepared to re-discuss the letter
in more detail and that, should the Commission come
to a different position in the course of the final
payment assessment, we would inform the beneficiary
at that point in time. I had not idea that this was
sensed as a humiliation in public.
This incident could have been easily clarified within
the unit. Instead, a meeting titled “staff issues” was
organised by the Head of Unit together with a
representative of the HR Business Correspondent’s
team. In that meeting, everything went wrong. I
accepted the meeting language to be the mother
tongue of my two interlocutors, which I mastered less
well than, e.g., English. I accepted talking, without a
colleague of mine being present, since I had been told
that this was not anything to worry about, routine,
nothing serious…
Then I was told that there was a complaint from “the
country team of Member State A” that I was
“aggressive, directive, to the point of humiliating in
public”. I was shocked. I worked some 4 years with
these people, and I appreciated the open and
constructive discussions with them. At the latest at
that moment I should have interrupted the meeting. I

133
should have switched the language. But I was so
shocked that I did not. My mouth went dry, my heart
raced, I wrecked my brain, what had happened, how I
could have misunderstood this deeply the situation. I
repeated that I could not believe this, but it was
confirmed. I asked for concrete examples, but they
rather asked me, again and again: “Are you really not
aware?”

In the beginning, I was only told that the complaint

had been brought forward orally, in a meeting with the
CEO of the service provider, without mentioning a
subsequent email, sent only because my Deputy Head
of Unit had insisted on this. Only much later, I learnt
that there was this e-mail which I was never allowed to
see. When my Director referred to it, I was told, that it
could not be shared, because “we promised the service
provider not to transfer it.” “So, how did the Director
receive it?” − “It was printed out.” I was flabbergasted.
This was so surreal! Printing out and handing over the
print-out was not considered “transferring” it?! And
why giving it to me was?

I consulted a Confidential Counsellor and a staff

committee member. They insisted I should request a
meeting with the service provider’s CEO, and on being
accompanied by a colleague of mine in that meeting.
They also recommended to search for a new job. The
requested meeting was arranged but then moved on
short notice to a time slot, when my colleague was on
leave. Then it was cancelled altogether, because now
the Mediation Service was to solve the issue. I should
have been weary, when a specific person at the
Mediation Service was suggested by the HR Business
Correspondent. At the outset, she was highly
sympathetic and supportive, encouraging me to be
offensive rather than defensive. She was also
supportive of my “flight” (I was applying for a job in
another unit in the DG, once again fleeing…).
However, things changed when she realised who my
Head of Unit was. Now it became clear that she, too,
was from the same circle. “But he is such a nice person,
he could never do something like that!”, she
exclaimed. And actually, she was right; even longer e-
mails in English I was receiving from him were not
written by him. His language skills in English were
clearly not sufficient. Those of the Deputy Head of
Unit were…

And this is, what the mediation looked like: I was

invited to a bilateral with the colleague from the
Mediation Service. Besides supporting my intention to
leave the unit and lending me a book on the topic, she
explained to me what “my problem” was: “Being from
the national background you are, you take things too
seriously and are too hard a worker. At the same time,
your language skills of Member State A are too good.
This leads to a cultural misunderstanding because the

135
experts from that country have a different work ethic.
You are perceived as a harasser. You need to better
adapt to other cultures and be more sensitive, when it
comes to other ways of doing things. And do not forget
that people from country A should not be confused
with people from the country of origin of your
husband, who were colonised by country A. They have
an entirely different, more subordinate character.” I
was too shocked and too tired to even try to explain to
her the absurdity of her “analysis”.
It became even more Kafkaesque: The “mediation”
proposed was the following: “You will promise not to
take this matter further. And the Head of Unit will
promise not to stand in your way. In particular, he will
not disclose anything about this affair to the Head of
the new unit where you applied.” My Head of Unit
“generously” accepted this mediation offer. It was easy,
since he already had spoken to the new Head of Unit
beforehand…
New lessons learnt: If people want you to leave, they
will find ways to make you flee, always. When happy in
your job, do not overlook the signs of harassment until
you get seriously hurt and enter a Kafkaesque
procedural treadmill, where you promise things
against your will and beliefs, just to be let alone. Plus:
never forget, what you already learned before: being
happy, being liked will inevitably be bad for you, as
soon as your superiors feel inferior to you in one way
or the other. And never ever rely on senior managers
to stand up for you, no matter how highly they think
of you.

Station number 6: Already the frosty and

contradictory job interview warns me. When I get
confirmation that both my former and my new Heads
of Unit are privileged members of the “club” of DG
protégés, I fear the worst. I am entering dangerous
territory. My big luck is the Deputy Head of Unit and
most of the colleagues in the new unit, with whom I
already previously worked together on a regular basis.
They enable me to enter into the new technically and
legally complex files and to quickly feel at home in the
team.
Few unit meetings passed without me being slighted in
one way or the other. Even trainees would come up to
me after a few weeks, asking me, what the Head of
Unit had against me because she treated me so
harshly. The situation was aggravated because I had to
work on a file that was very dear to top politicians in
Member State C, the one from which my Head of Unit
originated. Although from the start it was clear that it
was a stillborn initiative, with most other Member
States against it, I was ordered to push for it, often
beyond the Commission’s competences. My Head of
Unit would openly speak of “instructions” directly

137
received from her home country. Also the Director
General intervened in inacceptable ways. I suffered
from this situation and tried, as much as I could, to
mend relations with Member States and re-establish
trust. My conscience suffered, but I no longer had the
power nor the courage to blow the whistle. Even
honestly reporting about the opposition of a big
majority of Member States against this initiative was
perceived as not doing enough to push it through.
The new Director, like my former Director, thought
highly of me. Me, too, I valued them both,
intellectually and on a purely personal level. But they
both belonged to the directors whose nomination
procedure was already ongoing, when the new
Director General arrived, and thus they were
proclaimed as personae non grata. They did not dare to
stand up against the DG… I guess, to become a director
you need to leave your spine behind somewhere in a
cupboard. The first time around, my deception was
great. This time, having no longer any expectations
helped.

Self-doubts and doubts about working for the right

employer grew. I started a psychotherapy, at first to
learn how to deal with a great hardship that had hit
our family, then to learn to better handle my situation
at work. It helped me survive.
A bit more than a year later, I am happy to hear that
there will be a switch of Heads of Unit. I am sure that
the new one will be better. He has to be.

Station number 7: However, there is one issue that

makes his start in the unit awkward for all of us: Our
new Head of Unit has been transferred to our unit
against his will, and he makes that quite clear from the
beginning. His former team has drafted and pushed
through to adoption an important policy, and now he
is not able to reap the rewards of this work, receive the
prizes and applause he so much hoped for. His
dissatisfaction with his new position leads to a
situation where he is often absent, often even still
attending meetings related to his former portfolio, and
when he is there he cherry picks the visible events. He
is addicted to visibility. He creates more and more
work for all of us by adding new “visible” tasks,
promising things we cannot deliver on, and
multiplying the number of meetings we have to attend
in addition to our regular work. And he wants us to
drop mandatory but not so “sexy” tasks like
monitoring the implementation of binding EU law. All
those, who are not capable of or willing to follow, are
systematically exposed in unit meetings. This creates
an atmosphere of fear and unease. He also
reintroduces “divide and reign” tactics. In contrast to
his predecessor, he clearly has a small “fan club”. What
pains me most is how badly he treats some colleagues,

139
who both excel in everything they do, and poisons the
atmosphere.
Our workload and the permanent pressure and
tensions grow to such an extreme that I feel on the
verge of a burn-out. I inform my Team Leader, the
Deputy and the Head of Unit. The former both react
worried and sympathetic and try – once more – to
reduce the workload for all of us. The latter does not
seem to have listened to me and just gives me advice
like “go home earlier” and “use the meetings to draft
mails, briefings, etc. in parallel”.
At that time, I analyse where the pressure and tension
stem from and I dare to voice my opinion in a team
meeting, which the Head of Unit has called for, to
“start a process of prioritisation”. The list of issues I see
include among others: constantly changing priorities
and sending different (partly contradicting) messages
to different persons; inacceptable ways of treating
colleagues in front of others; creating a lot of stress
and tensions by behaving inadequately for small
mishaps.
For example, my Head of Unit tells me that I need to
be in two places at a time, “to survive” (e.g., be in a
meeting and work on a briefing). After I object that I
am not able to do so, he presents me like someone
weak because of this “shortcoming”, and that therefore
others in the team, overworked themselves, would
have to take on an extra burden. He also presents me
to the outside as not being reliable, by ignoring what
we had agreed beforehand, or claiming that I was not
qualified for my work. For instance, one day I am
ordered to come to a meeting in his office with
representatives of a small lobby group. All of a sudden,
he considers my presence indispensable, although it is
an agreed teleworking afternoon after a night’s flight
following a mission. In the meeting he introduces me
as a colleague without knowledge of the topic (which
is not true), who would be taking notes. Despite
having been discredited like that, I intervene
knowledgeably on the topic and counter their
arguments successfully, but the damage is done.
In that team meeting (“to start the process of
prioritisation”) I conclude that, personally, I feel
harassed, because my individuality, my physical and
intellectual capacities are not respected.

I was supported, in particular by my team mates. My

Head of Unit referred to my words as a “courageous
intervention”, which showed that “this sit-down was
highly necessary”. However, afterwards he tried to turn
it around as me having “harassed” him. Though he did
not succeed, workwise things do not improve and I
keep muddling through on the verge of burn-out,
although according to my Team Leader and Deputy
Head of Unit continuing to provide very valuable

141
input. I myself doubt more and more, whether I am
made for this job, for this institution.
In the next CDR, the Head of Unit e.g., refers to me as
not being sufficiently resilient. And in my CDR
dialogue he asks, whether I might not wish to go on
early pension.

The way the Head of Unit deals with the Deputy Head
of Unit after he suffered a terrible personal hardship is
appalling and makes me wish to leave the unit as soon
as possible. I cannot bear witnessing this. An awful
personal hardship of my own enables me to put the
importance of work into perspective, and working
from home during the COVID-19 pandemic helps, too.
I start to look for job vacancies…
After a year of further suffering and despite the bad
CDR, I successfully apply in another DG. A new blissful
period started. I am still struggling, my self-esteem
being very low after so many years of putting into
question the way I am and function. But although the
workload in this new job is also unbearably high and
everything is new to me, and despite another period of
serious personal hardships in parallel, I slowly regain
confidence. It is a blissful island of great colleagues, a
warm-hearted Head of Unit, and a supportive Deputy
Head of Unit. I start to believe that I am not all wrong
in this place, after all. Still, after 7 stations of Via
Dolorosa, I am changed: more careful, less
spontaneous, less myself, less sure of myself, not only
at work. I will continue working on my present
“Paradise Island”, but should things go to hell again, I
might just chose early pension instead of running off,
once again. My dream of contributing to the European
idea by working for the institution, which is meant to
be the “Guardian of the Treaty”, has far too often
turned into a nightmare.

143
 Postface

This booklet is a collection of testimonies of

psychological harassment at the European
Commission. Its purpose is to break the silence around
this painful topic through a documentation of abuses
and suffering and to raise awareness. The witness
accounts collected here reflect the authors’ personal
opinions. Collecting such personal testimonies is,
however, a recognised method of evidence gathering
in historiography, known as “oral history”; together
with other sources, they may help to better understand
and address the problem.

Although each story is very personal and individual,

there are certain patterns emerging, which are
discussed in this postface. They allow drawing a
picture of the nature of psychological harassment and
the enabling mechanisms behind.

(1) It is striking how many authors of the stories come

from European countries that joined the EU in 2004.
In their accounts they inevitably draw a comparison
between their experiences in their home countries
under the Communist dictatorship and the situations
in which they found themselves at the Commission.
They often speak about their deep disappointment and
even shock to find at the Commission a similar lack of
justice, of respect for human dignity and of the rule of
law. It is something they had not imagined to be
possible in the democratic part of Europe when
growing up behind the Iron Curtain.

The European Commission is not perceived as just a

work place: it is a key institution of the European
Union and therefore it needs to reflect its ideals, values
and core principles also inside the organisation. One
of them is that all nations and countries are equal and
work together towards common goals. However, in the
eyes of the colleagues who experienced harassment it
is often a place where national domination patterns
are being reproduced. No wonder that colleagues are
often discriminated against because of their
nationality, and a kind of “national nepotism” can be
observed.
Even though managers – men and women – represent
various nationalities, most of them have been selected
in such a way as to preserve the system; the
phenomenon of mimicry and internalised
discrimination can be often seen and experienced. It
does not seem that women promoted in management
at the Commission would be less prone to abusive
behaviours.

(2) Those who experienced harassment often speak

about old-fashioned management style they found at
this workplace. It is an out-dated “hierarchical” system,

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maintained at any cost to preserve privileges and
almost unlimited power of those in management
positions. Managers (and quasi managers) are to be
most frequently found among harassers.1 It is because
a managerial post at the Commission has become
rather a status than a role. Managers are equipped
with disproportionate power and privileges, not tamed
by either the trade unions or the administration.
Consequently, the value of persons is defined by their
status. Often, this status is not earned by merit but
given by a system based on favouritism, and on the
“divide and reign” principle. This means that to
become a manager one has to find a powerful
protector to help him/her climb up the ladder in the
hierarchy. To find a protector means to “please the
hierarchy” with an attitude of absolute submission and
blind obedience. As some authors of the testimonies
observed, it is not possible to even correct obvious
factual mistakes (let alone serious irregularities) while
doing one’s job diligently when those mistakes had
been made by someone in a managerial position. It is
perceived like “lese-majesty”. Since often being a
manager is not based on merit, those appointed
usually lack the necessary competences and, when
challenged, they try to compensate this through power
abuses. They punish those who do not accept

(1) This has been confirmed by the recent survey carried out by DG
HR
unconditionally their status positions and serve them
as “faithful vassals”. They can do so like “absolute
tyrants”, since they enjoy almost full impunity.
Managers at the European Commission are above the
law; they are protected by the system that gave them
the power.
(3) In practice it means that all formal procedures
based on the Staff Regulations designed as legal
instruments against harassment do not work. As
described in the testimonies, Art. 24 request for
assistance (Staff Regulations) is a Kafkaesque farce.
Harassment cases are usually dismissed as non-cases
without investigation. Similarly, Art. 90 complaints are
either dismissed or recognised but not executed. What
is more, those who have courage to speak up and to
make use of their rights quasi automatically become
subjects to retaliation and stigmatisation, which can
sometimes last for years. They are trapped in the
system and their careers are usually broken. Their
promotions are delayed. They cannot move on to
another DG while applying to vacant posts thereby
escaping the toxic environments; blackmailing and
badmouthing is a way to prevent this. HR services and
managers work hand in hand, exchange information
about the candidates and warn each other against such
“black sheep”. In addition, these colleagues usually
have flawed, defamatory CDR reports which also block
their mobility options and careers.

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(4) CDR abuses are a frequent tool used by the
harassers to slight and put down persons in disgrace.
They can be sure that such abusive CDRs are
confirmed by the next instance in the management,
either a director or a director general, acting as appeal
assessors. Our colleagues describe cases where CDR
appeals ended up with even worse reports. There is an
unwritten rule in the Commission, according to which
one is not allowed to speak up when wrongdoing is
done; only when putting their heads down and silently
accepting humiliation and abuses from those in
managerial position may prevent from “being
destroyed”. The more a colleague tries to defend him
or herself, the harsher the punishment and retaliation.
Nobody is interested in the underlying facts; that is
why the formal complaints against flawed CDRs
usually look like a farce, too.
(5) It is striking that harassed colleagues hear similar
allegations: that they have “conflictual nature”,
“problems with the hierarchy”, “deficiencies in
cooperation with colleagues”, “deficiencies in
understanding political aspects” or “difficulties in
accepting different opinions”. It seems that there is a
quite limited canon of such characteristics and they
are re-used in similar situations. Based on such
allegations, colleagues can be forced to see the
psychological services of the Commission and then be
pushed out to invalidity or early retirement.
(6) This creates a culture of fear at the Commission.
Colleagues telling their stories often speak about fear
they felt when being exposed to harassment. Those
being in precarious position such as contractual agents
risk loosing their jobs. There is also a rather common
experience that colleagues witnessing harassment turn
a blind eye – they pretend not to see the abuses
thereby contributing to the isolation of the harassed
colleague. According to the accounts, mistreatment
has often become part of the job at the Commission,
“justified” by the good pay slips.

(7) In such an environment there is “little to no

option” to defend oneself. The only way to escape
oppression would be to “flee” the unit and find a new
place. In many cases this is also the purpose of
harassment; to get rid of an inconvenient person.
However, as many colleagues pointed out, they did not
want to leave because they loved their jobs and the
places where they felt appreciated. And so they
endured persecution until they broke down. From the
insights provided in this booklet it becomes clear that
colleagues targeted by harassers are often excellent
workers, talented and skilled, motivated and
enthusiastic about their work and usually liked by
other colleagues. They often “stick out of the crowd”.
And yet, they are punished for exactly being so. It
seems that in this status-oriented environment
efficiency, hard work, and good results are not valued.

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Therefore, it does not matter how good someone is at
work and what s/he achieves. It does not matter either
that after such a person finally leaves the unit, his/her
project becomes a failure, is halted, or becomes
insignificant. In this way public money is wasted. It
turns out that it does not pay off to like a job too much
at the Commission; envy is a destructive force and is
often the root-cause of harassment.

(8) There are many ways described by colleagues how

acts of harassment may look like. Usually these are
those “small things” which may not appear so grave at
first sight. But when they add up over a longer period
of time, they usually lead to a burn-out and break-
down. According to the colleagues’ accounts, those
targeted by harassment are regularly omitted, side-
lined, disregarded – they become “invisible”. They
either get little, simple tasks or do not have work at all.
At other occasions they are overloaded with work
impossible to manage. They are systematically omitted
in the promotion exercise and have little or no career
prospects. They are put down. It happens that abusive
behaviours include humiliating, shaming and
ridiculing in public, yelling and insulting. However,
harassment usually takes on more subtle forms and
happens behind closed doors; in intimidating
meetings, for instance.
(9) Harassment has a destabilising, devastating impact
on health. Colleagues describe in their testimonies the
many, many sleepless nights, long-term sick leaves,
and even suicidal thoughts. Because of the subtle,
hidden, malicious nature of the harassing acts, targets
of harassment are exposed to self-doubts, insecurity
and hopelessness. After such experiences they are
“marked”, they are “not the same persons any more”,
“watching their backs all times”. They say that it is a
“never healing wound”; their experiences at the
Commission “destroy their view of humanity and
people”. Colleagues also speak about their families,
spouses and children, who suffer together with them,
sometimes for years. Harassment does not only
damage professional careers, it destroys people’s lives !

(10) The testimonies show that usually there is little

help provided by the institution in the form of the so-
called informal procedure. The colleagues in the
network of confidential counsellors show empathy and
listen to, which is certainly important. But they cannot
do much more than that. Generally, the remedy-
provision is scattered, ad hoc, and unreliable. It
appears as if services being in charge of helping
colleagues in a harassment situation were not
interested in an efficient action. Positive experiences
with the Mediation Service or the Medical Service
mentioned in the testimonies are rather an exception;
the prevailing views of the authors are that such

151
services do not really help, but at times they even
reinforce the acts of harassment.

The facts described in this booklet have been blurred

and the persons involved anonymised; both the
perpetrators and the targets of harassment. No names
of persons are being used, except for some fictitious
names. The gender has been changed in most cases.
No names of the Directorates Generals in which the
colleagues worked or have been working are
mentioned. DG HR is only mentioned as DG
responsible for the anti-harassment instruments.

However, blurring and anonymisation do not limit the

validity of the testimonies.
This collection does not aim to expose individual
wrongdoers in the first place: this is the obligation of
the Commission as an institution to make individual
perpetrators legally accountable for their wrongdoing.
However, the accounts gathered here accuse a system
(and those responsible for maintaining it), which does
not protect the targets of harassment and does not
sanction the harassers. So far, the Commission has
refused to fulfil its duty of care.
The Harassment Watch Network has issued several
working papers with detailed proposals on how to
change this situation.2 However, such change is not
possible without a clear political will. We are putting
trust in the engagement and support of the President
of the Commission to make this change finally happen.

Brussels, in June 2022

Harassment Watch Network

2
DEFICIENCIES OF THE ANTI-HARASSMENT POLIY OF THE EUROPEAN
COMMISSION AND ELEMENTS OF A TRUE REFORM
ABUSES OF THE ANNUAL APPRAISAL EXERCISE (“CDR”) IN THE EUROPEAN
COMMISSION AS TOOL OF PSYCHOLOGICAL HARASSMENT

153
 About the Harassment Watch Network
We are a group of colleagues from currently more than 30
different Commission services who joined this informal
independent network. It was created in late 2019 as a response
to the problem of harassment within the Commission, which is
currently downplayed and not seriously tackled. We aim at
changing this situation: We want to see our workplace free of
harassment and any other form of violence and discrimination,
a place where every colleague feels respected and valued,
working in dignity and fully enjoying human rights.

We want to break the silence around harassment in our

institution, the isolation of colleagues affected by harassment
as well as the fear, which many colleagues still have when
being confronted with harassment. We aim at transforming the
Commission culture in a way to ensure that our working
relationships are based on mutual respect and courtesy,
responsibility and understanding, inclusion and friendship,
collaboration and participation. We start by ourselves: we are
building a living network of colleagues, based on mutual trust
and solidarity, on self-commitment to help each other in need,
and not to turn a blind eye when colleagues are suffering from
harassment.

We also aim at launching an open and honest dialogue about

harassment to substantially improve the prevention and
handling of harassment cases. Currently we offer, inter alia,
self-help group meetings at least once a month and we have
advocacy teams which draft policy papers.
You can find us on Yammer where we created a Harassment
Watch Network group and posted the text of Manifesto.

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