Newsletter July 2002
We started off with some general questions about his background; where he studied, his career and his current activities.
Mr. Cioffi's career started after he finished his studies in economics at Bocconi University in Milan, a very prestigious institution. He worked for several state-owned Italian banks, the last one located in Luxembourg.
In 1983 he left the private sector and joined the European Commission as General Director of DG XVIII, the credit and investment unit. This Commission DG was mainly involved in financing for the ECSC, EEC and EURATOM and had an estimated yearly financing activity of 2 to 3 Billion ECU. As such, it was the equiva-lent of the EIB nowadays.
In 1996 Mr Cioffi moved to DG 1B, also in the Commission, where he worked as General Di-rector in charge of External Relations specifically with the Meditarrean Countries, Latin Amer-ica and South-East Asia.
After three years he was transferred to the European Parliament's DG IV, where he has since then held the position of Director General. His activities in Strasbourg consist of attending the meetings of the Bureau, the meetings of the Presidents of the Committees and STOA.
Concerning the activities of DG IV, Mr Cioffi confirmed to us that DG IV works in coordina-tion with DG II and that both DGs mainly provide services to the Parliament Committees.
We asked Mr. Cioffi about his opinion about the mobility policy (a grade officials having to chnage posts every five years) of the Parliament, and whether the policy created problems for DG research.
Mr Cioffo however chose not to answer the question explaining the isuue was not within his field of competence, but within that of DG V.
Nonetheless, the Director General gave his opinion about the officials' institutionnal reform which is still being debated. According to Mr Cioffi the reform is necessary but should not take away the essence of the job of the officials.
We also learned that Mr Cioffi is very proud of the presence of young people as trainees in the Parliament. He believes it is a perfect way for them to get acquainted with one of the European Institutions, including its purposes and tasks. According to him, giving them the possibility to find their professional path between the private and the public sector and encouraging the most clever young (under)graduates from all over Europe to join the Parliament, is very important.
Finally, Mr Cioffi emphasized the importance of maintaining contact between former and cur-rent trainees through EUPATRAS. However, he underlines that to achieve all the objectives of EUPATRAS, more stability is necessary, especially because until September this year, trainees stay for different periods of time and continuity is lacking. Moreover, support of officials and a financial contribution from the European Parliament is absolutely essential.
Catherine Ferry
Alja van Wilsem
Andrea Zamboni
(c) JW 2002
