A quote from The Sunday Telegraph, 28 January 2007

The European Commission’s website claims it has 25,000 staff. The British Government thinks the number is about 37,000. But the total employed by the Brussels executive is actually more than 54,000, researchers at the Westminster think tank Open Europe have discovered. [...]

Lorraine Mullally, of Open Europe, said: “The EU discreetly publishes a Statistical Bulletin listing staff levels at its agencies, but when we contacted these agencies directly we found they had far more staff than listed.” Many of the agencies took months to answer requests. One, the European Police College, repeatedly refused to disclose its staff numbers.