Financing of Political Parties and Foundations Unit: IT Profile

The Directorate-General for Finance, hereinafter DG FINS, is responsible for Parliament’s budgetary and financial management. Based in both Luxembourg and Brussels, it draws up Parliament's budget, keeps Parliament’s accounts and prepares its financial statements, manages Members' allowances and entitlements, and finances Parliament’s political groups, as well as political parties and foundations at European level. DG FINS consists of three Directorates, 17 Units and the Central Secretariat. DG FINS plays a key and varied role in Parliament’s administration and is a trusted interlocutor for Members and political authorities. Joining DG FINS as a trainee will certainly boost your career. We value diversity, promote equal opportunities, and foster inclusion. 

The Financing of Political Parties and Foundations Unit forms part of DG FINS Directorate C. We manage, supervise and keep track of every stage in the procedure for funding the European political parties and political foundations (allocation of funding, budget implementation, closure of accounts and scrutiny of final reports). We prepare all the European Parliament Bureau decisions on funding for the European political parties and foundations. Further, we liaise with the external auditor and work with the Authority for European Political Parties and European Political Foundations.

You will engage in two major projects at the interface between Financial Administration and IT:

1. We receive specific questions from our beneficiaries (parties and foundations) on aspects that are not regulated in detail in the applicable regulations. The answers we provide form a "patchwork". In order to provide coherent answers and avoid treating our beneficiaries unequally, we would like to set up a database that uses keywords to identify similar questions. The successful trainee would be responsible for:

• Identifying, preferably from the catalogue of applications available within the institution, the tool that best meets our needs;
• Setting up the tool and feeding it with questions already asked;
• Drawing up a user guide for the unit. 

2. As part of the closing of their accounts, which we have to check, our beneficiaries have to send us information on all their contractors (for contracts over a certain value). The amount of data collected is considerable. We would like to set up a database-type tool that would allow us to cross-reference data from one year to the next and between different beneficiaries, in order to detect potential problems more easily.  An existing Excel file already exists, but it is not easy to cross-reference data. The successful trainee would be responsible for:

• Identifying, preferably from the catalogue of applications available within the institution, the tool that best meets our needs;
• Setting up the tool and feeding it with the contracts already registered;
• Drawing up a user guide for the unit. 

• You have an academic background in Information Technology or similar, and preferably first professional experience in the field;
• You have an interested in understanding the financing of political structures;
• You are fluent in English and/or French.