Good exposure, not a great working environment - Programmer 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.

Working there, you will have supportive colleagues. You will be surrounded by people animated by a passion for their work. It is overall a dynamic environment with people always keen on exchanging ideas. Every day is intellectually stimulating. The work-life balance is also a great point. There is a lot of trust put on all team members. Everyone wants to contribute and is note there just because it's a job but because the work participates in the grand scheme of european politics. And this translates into an intellectually stimulating but also very flexible work environment with the possibility to attend conferences and work from abroad with relative ease.

The EPC will offer you an independent contract (at least for all the analysts). The EPC will not participate in your social security, with the clear consequences regarding pension. For junior staff especially, this is a disadvantage that is often overlooked. Starting a certain "salary" (in quotes because as an independent it is not a salary but rather a remuneration or fee) you will either need to understand belgian tax regulations or hire an accountant to make sure that you are in order. This an additional cost. In the case of a programme assistant, the remuneration is below the VAT threshold, and hence, there is no need to make complex calculations. A programme assistant contract is a 2x 6 months contract which does not ensure at all the possibility to stay longer within the company. The business model relies, in part, on hiring experienced junior-level professionals for a periode of one year. The experience certainly is valuable and it is better than not working, especially in the very competitive policy environment. But this competition leads to exploitative mechanisms such as this kind of contract. The offices are equipped with computers to work on and the set of softwares needed to be able to work, but to be able to work from home, you need to have your own computer. Let's face it, most people have a computer, but this adds another potential financial strain.