Commission reshuffles senior management

The European Commission has made a further reshuffle of its senior management with three changes at the level of director-general.

Two of the appointments follow from the merger of the Commission departments dealing with development and foreign aid. Koos Richelle, who currently heads the EuropeAid Co-operation office, is to become the Commission’s director-general for employment, social affairs and inclusion. He was due for a move, because Commission rules require that directors-general are rotated after five years and at most seven years, and he has been in his current job for six-and-a-half years. He joined the Commission in 2001 as director-general for development. Before that, in his time in the Dutch civil service, he was a director-general for welfare in the ministry of welfare and health, and director-general for change management in social security in the ministry of social security and labour.

Robert Verrue, the current director-general of employment, makes way for Richelle. The 63-year old Frenchman, who was only transferred to the department in June 2009 has been appointed an adviser, a common move for senior staff close to retirement.

Fokion Fotiadis, who has been the director-general of development since June, is left to take charge of the department being formed out of the remnants of the development department (many of whose staff are being transferred into the European External Action Service) and the EuropeAid Co-operation office. The Commission announced the creation of DG Devco last month.

The three appointments announced yesterday (17 November) will take effect on 1 January.

The Commission also moved to fill an imminent vacancy at the top of the Joint Research Centre, its scientific advisory service. Dominique Ristori, a French national, will become director-general of the JRC from 1 December, when Roland Schenkel, the current post-holder, retires. Schenkel is a scientist, who has published more than 100 academic papers on nuclear physics and rose within the JRC, whereas Ristori is by training a lawyer. He is currently deputy director-general at the energy department, where he leads on nuclear energy.