Brussels: lawyer-linguist positions

We have received a large number of questions about foreign language jobs in Europe, as well as other types of legal work in Europe, so we thought we’d start by providing some information about upcoming lawyer-linguist exams.

The following will not be appropriate to many of you because these positions require you be a citizen of an EU member state.  There are large number of Posse List members who are citizens of EU member states, and a greater number of you who have the appropriate family connections and have been applying for citizenship in an EU member state.    We’ll have a few other postings this weekend/week about European jobs and these will have broader application.

The EU will be conducting exams (they do so on a regular basis) for lawyer-linguists positions in various departments/divisions of the EU.  Lawyer-linguists are responsible for the preparation of the EU’s legal acts and instruments in the official languages of the EU, for reviewing such texts for legal, linguistic and terminological consistency and for maintaining a legal terminology database.

Applicants for these exams must be citizens of one of the Member States of the European Union: Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom.

Not all languages are covered in each exam period.  The current list of exams is linked below.

The pay scale for these positions is AD7 and it’s not too shabby:  base pay is 5,400 euros a month ($6,800) and the “add-ons” for family, your “center of interest”,  etc. can increase your monthly to  6,000+ euros ($7,600).   That, coupled with a special income tax regime, means you can do quite well.

For details on the current list of language exams and the requirements, as well as for more information on EU positions, please click here.

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