Between Policy Professionals and Assistants: Education and Competences of Accredited Parliamentary Assistants in the European Parliament

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Public Administration (MSc)

Kowalczyk, Maciej (2021)

Between Policy Professionals and Assistants: Education and Competences of Accredited Parliamentary Assistants in the European Parliament

Master thesis | Public Administration (MSc)

Accredited Parliamentary Assistants are ‘eyes and ears’ of Members of the European Parliament, yet their influence on MEPs and role as a backstage support has not been widely discussed. The scope of APAs tasks and employment status prevent unequivocal categorisation. This paper draws from the literature on ‘policy professionals’ and three types of knowledge provision: problem formulation; process expertise; information access to shed more light on their work and environment which they operate. To answer the research question, six hypotheses were formulated and descriptive statistics and statistical analysis were applied. The anonymous, online survey was conducted among APAs and the set of data was collected (N = 116). The thesis concluded that APAs share similarities with policy professionals – yet they differ in their attitude towards academic education and on-the-job training.

Accredited Parliamentary Assistants