19-03-2025
Five years of change: How the Blue Book Programme has grown
The Blue Book Traineeship programme welcomed 9,562 trainees between 2020 and 2025.
Over the past five years, the European Commission hired more female trainees than male trainees across the European Union.
That's according to data shared by the Secretariat General of the European Commission via a Freedom of Information (FOI) request.
The Blue Book Traineeship programme is a five-month paid internship offered by the Commission, occurring twice a year - in March and October.
It provides graduates with the opportunity to gain experience in EU policymaking and administration.
There were only six instances in which the number of male trainees outnumbered female trainees.
Malta was the EU country where this situation happened three times - in March 2020 and 2023, and in October 2023.
The Netherlands had two occurrences in October 2024 and March 2025, and Denmark had one instance in March 2020.
The only country where the number of female and male trainees was equal was Luxembourg in October 2021.
Between 2020 and 2025, the programme admitted only 168 non-binary individuals.
Italy is the country with the highest number of candidates, exceeding 25,000.
France follows with over 11,000 candidates, and Spain has slightly over 10,000.
By contrast, Estonia recorded the fewest candidates at just 199, followed by Malta with 240 and Latvia with 257.
The UK's last participation in this traineeship was in 2020, with 29 trainees in March and 24 in October.
The year 2021 saw the highest number of candidates overall, accounting for more than 19,000 applications.
However, in 2024, the highest number of trainees was accepted, exceeding 1,900 participants.
"Russia wants to see the US and Europe divided. Let's not give them that," the EU's foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas has told Euronews.
Speaking live on Euronews' Europe Today on Wednesday, Kallas said that there is "no wedge" between Brussels and Trump's administration, and urged both sides to remain united in the face of Russia's aggression in Ukraine.
Kallas also said that the current talks are "shuttle diplomacy" and that Europe will have a seat on the table when formal negotiations on a peace settlement start.
"There is no table where Russia and Ukraine are sitting right now. It's a shuttle diplomacy," she said, a day after a call between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in which both presidents agreed to a temporary 30-day halt on strikes on Ukraine's energy infrastructure.
"Of course for any deal to work you need Europeans around the table to agree to the deal. Because the implementation of the deal needs to be in the hands of Europe."
Asked about her response to the Putin-Trump call, Kallas said: "It's really good to see how these things are going. Trump was clear that aid to Ukraine was not discussed. Putin said it was discussed. I'd rather trust Trump on this than President Putin."
According to reports, Putin demanded that the West halt its deliveries of military aid to Ukraine as a precondition for the limited 30-day ceasefire. Trump later claimed in an interview with Fox news that military aid was "not discussed."
Trump also hailed that call as "productive", but the limited ceasefire agreed falls short of the comprehensive halt to fighting on land, sea and air that the US President had hoped to secure.
Kallas also cast doubt over Putin's good will and the feasibility of the limited, 30-day ceasefire he agreed with Trump.
"In order for the ceasefire to work there has to be deterrence. And if all guards are down, I mean Putin has shown this before, hes not keeping to the ceasefires." she said.
"And if he wants the guards to be down on the Ukrainian side, then he actually achieves what he wants, and I am absolutely certain he will continue."
Kallas has tabled a proposal to release a staggering €40 billion in fresh military support for Ukraine which, if approved, could ramp up deliveries of artillery ammunition, air defence systems, missiles, drones and fighter jets.
The draft proposal, recently seen by Euronews, would see "participating countries" pitch in with pledges, meaning it would not require the unanimous approval of all 27 EU member states.
It's also open to like-minded non-EU participating countries, such as the United Kingdom and Norway, suggesting a shift to a "coalition of the willing."
Kallas' initiative will be up for debate when EU leaders gather in Brussels for a summit on Thursday. Questions remain over whether the €18 billion loan, backed by the seized windfall profits from Russian assets frozen in the EU, will be part of that plan.
The EU executive is also expected to unveil a paper later on Wednesday with concrete proposals on how to ramp up Europe's defences.
"The stronger we are the less likely war is," Kallas said. "We need to do more for our defence. We also need to do more for Ukraine so that the stronger they are on the battlefield, the stronger they are on the negotiation table."
