BRUSSELS, AUGUST 21, 1950.

Foreign Minister Spaak has decided to formulate the outlines of a new administrative reform in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA). Spaak has long believed that Belgium requires a comprehensive overhaul of its MFA in order to maintain its competence internationally. He believes that Belgium has still not fully grasped the situation of post-war Europe and the newly-defined international order. In this context, Spaak has met with Prime Minister Buset and has presented the following reform:

Introduction

The Belgian government requires a whole reorganization of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This is required due to the changing circumstances of the international system and the necessity of the government to have an active body with relative bureaucratic insulation that can produce capable, well-analyzed foreign policy for the government to act upon.

It is also the Foreign Minister's hope that the MFA is reformed with such excellence that, in ten years' time, the MFA can be run solely by the diplomatic service of Belgium, without the necessity of political interference or management. This may seen like an eventual weakening of the position of the PSB/BSP, but Spaak has emphasized the necessity of a competent civil service.

To make it clear to the Prime Minister and other Cabinet members, these reforms are tasked to occur between 1950 and 1954. The departmental reforms can occur from 1950 to 1956, if an extension is required.

The Diplomatic Service of Belgium

The Belgian diplomatic service will be reworked into a singular umbrella service that has two sub-divisions: (1) Diplomacy; and, (2) Consular. Diplomats and consulate officials will be part, in theory, of the same organization, but they shall receive different training and education, as well as different ways of being accepted within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as an employee.

Both sub-divisions will possess different rank structures as well. The diplomatic rank structure is going to be defined as follows:

• Minister, First Class;

• Minister, Second Class;

• Counselor;

• First Secretary;

• Second Secretary;

• Third Secretary.

Meanwhile, the consulate rank structure will be defined as follows:

• Consul-General;

• Consul;

• Vice-Consul;

• First Consular Secretary;

• Second Consular Secretary;

• Consular Employee.

Both these rank structures will be gradually applied from 1952 to 1954, in order to give the current employees a good period of adaptation and ensure the process is thorough.

It is expected that a person that is inducted into the Belgian diplomatic service will be promoted to the rank of Minister, First Class, at around 20 to 30 years of service. Promotion is based on competence, approval by the General-Secretariat of the MFA, and the Foreign Minister.

The salary range for a diplomat has been defined between US$3,900 to US$5,000, from Third Secretary to Minister, First Class, which is quite higher than the GDP per capita, defined at US$1,688.00 in 1950. However, the fact that diplomats are stringently selected and require a constant output of intellectual production and high-quality results in foreign policy means that this functions as a financial incentive, providing stability and security for diplomats.

The National Exam for the Diplomatic Service of Belgium (ENSDB/NEDDB)

The real emphasis of the reform - other than the massive reorganization that shall be performed regarding the structure of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its intellectual production - will be on the development of a comprehensive and democratic national exam that is capable of inducting well-educated Belgians into the diplomatic service. Foreign Minister Spaak believes that the current admission exams are fragile and incapable of addressing modernity. Therefore, the ENSDB will be composed of the following exam structure, with four phases:

1. Written tests in History, Belgian Literature, International Politics, National Politics, International Law, Internal Law, Economics, and Geography.

2. A three-page dissertation on a foreign policy topic chosen by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

3. An oral exam with the objective of assessing the language proficiency of candidates in French, Dutch, and English.

4. Written tests in French, Dutch, and English.

There is no fixed scoring scale. The ENSDB calculates the score by averaging the top 25% of performers. This means that candidates are progressively filtered at each phase of the exam. The number of applicants that are approved to become diplomats range from 15 to 30, depending on the criteria adopted by the MFA. Following their approval, the applicants will be considered Applicant Diplomats, who shall be inducted into the Joostens Institute, a new academy for the training of diplomats that will be further specified in a section of its own.

Regarding the eligibility and application process, the candidates must be aged 21 and above, with a Bachelor's Degree from a Belgian, Dutch, or Luxembourger institution, and be a citizen of the Kingdom of Belgium with no criminal record. The application process itself is relatively straightforward as the candidate must pay a fee of US$25.00 and send a letter to the MFA. Minister Spaak has personally lobbied for a provision that ensures that candidates facing financial difficulties can still participate, pending MFA approval.

In preparation for the ENSDB, the MFA will produce textbooks in all exam subjects from December 1950 to December 1951. These textbooks will be distributed to candidates upon request. Unauthorized sale or distribution of these materials will result in severe penalties, including a large fine of US$300 and a permanent ban from future ENSDB exams.

To conclude the section, the ENSDB will be administered in every city with at least three candidates and a population of 15,000 or more.

The Joostens Institute (IJ/JI)

The IJ, named after Maurice Joostens, is going to be where all diplomats will be trained at. It will be headquartered in Brussels. The institute was been modeled to provide three things: a standardized, two-year course called the Diplomatic Training Course, which has the status of a postgraduate degree in the Kingdom of Belgium; a standardized, two-year course called the Advanced Studies Course, which will be required for any diplomat or consul to be promoted beyond First Secretary; and a Course on Diplomatic Affairs, a standardized, three-year course required to be promoted to Minister, First Class.

The Diplomatic Training Course will consist of a two-year long training course with stringent requirements for approval, necessitating a 14.5 out of 20.0 in every subject to pass. It will consist of classes in History, Belgian Literature, International Law, International Negotiations, Economics and Geography. There will be special language classes where diplomats are tasked with learning, to a minimum of B2 proficiency, either German, Arabic, or Russian.

The Advanced Studies Course will consist of a two-year long training course where diplomats will seek to comprehend the most up-to-date academia on Political Science, Sociology and Philosophy. The final requirement to be approved in this course - which is necessary to be promoted beyond the rank of First Secretary - is the publishing of a monograph directed towards either analyzing or forwarding Belgium's foreign policy.

The Course on Diplomatic Affairs will consist of a three-year long training course where diplomats will seek to produce what is the equivalent of a Ph.D. thesis on Belgian foreign policy or extremely thorough analyses of the foreign policy of other European countries. There will be institutional encouragement towards the construction of a pan-European foreign policy.

The Reorganization of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

The MFA will be reorganized to allow for a broad - albeit capable - tackling of all international issues. Therefore, under this view, the organization of the MFA was based on this principle: (A) Internal organization; (B) International organization, which shall be explained below.

The internal organization of the MFA will be based on two parallel institutions: the Cabinet of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the General-Secretariat of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Cabinet will be composed of the Secretariat of Consultations on International Law and the Secretariat of Diplomatic Planning. The General-Secretariat will be composed of the General-Inspectorate of the MFA and the Joostens Institute.

The international organization of the MFA will be based on: the Sub-Secretariat on European Subjects; the Sub-Secretariat on North and Central American Subjects; the Sub-Secretariat on South American Subjects; the Sub-Secretariat on Middle Eastern Subjects; the Sub-Secretariat of Asian Subjects; and the Special Sub-Secretariat on Indochinese Affairs.

SUMMARY

• The Belgian government is performing a reorganization of the Belgian diplomatic service and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

• The new exam to work in the diplomatic service is more comprehensive in what it requires, but it is also quite stringent.

• The Joostens Institute has been created with the role of becoming the intellectual powerhouse of Belgian foreign policy, producing all sorts of analyses on the subject matter with the objective of improving the quality of the Belgian diplomatic service.

• The reorganization of the Belgian diplomatic service will serve to allow it to dynamically tackle all issues internationally.