[pcrh]

Agreed. The EU institutions are remarkably efficient compared to their national equivalents. 80,000 civil servants is a tiny number for a polity of 450 million people. Ireland for example has 50,000 for a population of 1/10th the size.

Admittedly however, the scope of national civil services tends to be much larger than that of the EU's.

[disgruntledphd2]

Where are you getting your Irish numbers from?

This source [0] suggests around 300k if we count everything.

It looks like you are just counting the core "civil" servants and defence maybe?

[0] https://publicjobs.ie/en/information-hub?view=article&id=247...

[pcrh]

Irish Times: "More than 50,000 staff now employed in Civil Service "

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2025/04/15/more-than-5000...

[disgruntledphd2]

Thanks! Interesting that the answer to the PQ doesn't map to the official data (not surprising, but interesting).

[potato3732842]

Those 50k Irish bureaucrats exist in that number because the organizations they work for are tasked with, among other things, ensuring compliance with rules written in Brussels.