EPC - Programme Assistant European Policy Centre Employee Review

Good opportunities for visibility, especially good for making connections with EU institutions, foundations and Brussels-based NGOs. Quite flexible; mostly good opportunities for pursuing your own research interests.

Everyone is put on a scam 'self-employed' contract that means you need to register as a business handle your own taxes. No support or guidance is provided for this. This usually isn't made clear during the application process so it comes as a shock to discover 30-50% of your (very meagre) salary has to go to taxes, even if you're on the base intern pay (which is significantly below Belgian minimum wage). Negotiating any more than a 100-200 euro pay rise per year is effectively impossible. Limited prospects for promotion after you've reached Policy Analyst level (1 year-18 months at most). Working hours are flexible but in practice you are expected to deliver so much that you will be doing 50+ hours a week at a minimum. Overall feels exploitative and is rarely rewarding. Only for those who very much want to increase their profile as an analyst or win 'name recognition': for career analysts only.

At the EPC, I had the opportunity to meet a wide range of people across different types of organisations (e.g. European Institutions, large corporations, business associations, NGOs, academia etc...). This opportunity allowed me to discover the work of many organisations and network with many people. The team does have nice colleagues.

As a programme assistant, you are essentially put on a freelance contract. It involves significant paperwork. With the social contributions you will have to pay, your take-home salary is less EUR 1,000/month, which is barely enough to make ends meet in Brussels, and less than a traineeship at the European Commission. In my experience, the career progression options are quite limited. This job gives you a foot in the door, but I won't expect to stay at the EPC for more than a year.