Judgment — ECLI:EU:F:2009:57
Date: 2009-06-09
Language of the case: French
Court formation: First Chamber
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Concepts: Foreign residence allowance;General
Procedure: Staff cases - unfounded;Action for damages - unfounded

Summary 1. Officials – Remuneration – Expatriation allowance – Purpose – Conditions for granting – No habitual residence or main occupation at the place of employment prior to taking up appointment – Concept (Staff Regulations, Annex VII, Art. 4(1)(a)) 2. Officials – Actions – Pleas in law – Plea based on the unlawfulness of the official’s recruitment procedure 1. The fundamental reason for the expatriation allowance provided for in Article 4(1)(a) of Annex VII to the Staff Regulations is to compensate officials for the extra expense and inconvenience of taking up permanent employment in a country with which the official had no permanent ties prior to taking up his appointment. Where it is required, for a finding that such ties existed, that the official in question must have habitually worked in the country of his future employment with the Communities for the whole of a given period, that means that professional services provided in other countries involving sporadic and brief absences during that period are not sufficient to deprive the official’s exercise of his main occupation in his State of employment of its habitual nature. (see paras 32-33) See: 188/83 Witte v Parliament [1984] ECR 3465, para. 11 T-72/94 Diamantaras v Commission [1995] ECR-SC I‑A‑285 and II‑865, para. 51 and the case-law cited therein 2. An official cannot rely on the unlawfulness of the procedure for his recruitment by a Community institution to apply for the annulment of the decision by that institution fixing his rights on taking up his appointment and refusing him the expatriation allowance, given that there is no adequate causal link between the official’s recruitment procedure and the contested decision. Illegalities vitiating the recruitment procedure might support claims for annulment of a recruitment decision; however, the question of the lawfulness of a decision fixing an official’s rights on taking up his appointment is separate from the lawfulness of the procedure by which the official concerned was recruited by that institution. (see para. 39)