Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2000:140
Date: 2000-03-16
Language of the case: French
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Procedure: Appeal - unfounded;Staff cases

Summary of the Judgment 
Officials — Recruitment — Procedures — Options — Priority to be given to promotion, 
transfer and internal competition 
(Staff Regulations, Art. 29(1)) 
The use of the formulation 'whether... can' 
in Article 29(1) of the Staff Regulations 
clearly indicates that the appointing author­
ity is not bound absolutely, where a vacant 
post is to be filled, to fill that post by way 
of promotion or transfer, but merely to 
consider in each case whether those mea­
sures are capable of resulting in the 
appointment of a person of the highest 
standard of ability, efficiency and integrity. 
Although the subdivision of Article 29(1) 
of the Staff Regulations requires the 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-174/99 P 
appointing authority to consider the possi­
bility of promotion with the utmost care 
before going on to the following stage, it 
does not prevent the authority, in the 
course of such an examination, from also 
taking account of the possibility of obtain­
ing better candidates by using the other 
procedures mentioned in that paragraph. 
It follows that the appointing authority is 
at liberty to consider the subsequent 
options and that it may go on to a 
subsequent stage of the recruitment proce­
dure, even where there are one or more 
candidates who satisfy all the conditions 
and requirements set out in the vacancy 
notice for the post to be filled. 
Nor is the appointing authority required to 
adopt a decision rejecting existing candi­
datures before going on to a subsequent 
stage. Where it goes from one recruitment 
stage to a subsequent stage it does so in 
order to widen its choice in order to find a 
candidate of the highest standard of ability, 
efficiency and integrity, and that objective 
would be jeopardised if before going on to 
a subsequent stage of the procedure it had 
to reject the candidatures already submitted 
during the earlier stages without being able 
to compare them with those submitted 
during the subsequent stages. 
Where a vacant post in an institution is to 
be filled in accordance with the Staff 
Regulations, the appointing authority must 
observe, in particular, the obligation set out 
in Article 7(1) of the Staff Regulations to 
assign officials solely in the interest of the 
service and without regard to nationality, 
the prohibition in the third paragraph of 
Article 27 of the Staff Regulations on 
reserving posts for nationals of any specific 
Member State and the obligation to follow 
the order laid down in Article 29(1) of the 
Staff Regulations. Those provisions must 
be observed at each stage of the recruitment 
procedure, and in particular when, follow­
ing an open competition, a reserve list 
which may serve as the basis for recruit­
ment is drawn up. 
Last, the appointing authority is required, 
when it considers that candidatures for 
promotion or transfer are not satisfactory, 
to consider the possibilities offered by 
Article 29(1)(b) and (c) of the Staff Reg­
ulations before following the recruitment 
procedure. 
(see paras 38-45, 50) 
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