Senior management change jobs, but no move for Catherine Day.
The European Commission’s decision on Tuesday (17 January) to move Heinz Zourek from the post of director-general of enterprise and industry to director-general of taxation and customs raises an intriguing question about Catherine Day, the secretary-general.
Day was appointed to the post in November 2005 to replace David O’Sullivan, who was moved to director-general for trade, after five-and-a-half years. The Commission said at the time that “the key principle is that senior management staff move after five years in the same function, although exceptionally they may remain in place up to seven years”.
Zourek was made director-general for enterprise in that same November 2005 reshuffle, but has now been rotated. So Day is now the only director-general who has not changed job since 2005, apart from the directors-general for interpretation (Marco Benedetti) and for informatics (Francisco García Morán), and Day is unlikely to want to swap with them.
Matthias Ruete, the director-general for mobility and transport, was appointed to the then department of transport and energy in 2006, but it was split in 2010. So by some interpretation, he might be due for rotation, but seems unlikely to get the secretary-general job if only because there are already German secretaries-general at both the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers.
So what happens to Day? Could it be that Barroso relies on her so much that that “key principle” is going to be re-written?