Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:2000:258
Date: 2000-11-08
Language of the case: French
Court formation: Second Chamber
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Concepts: General;Starting point and calculation;Adjustment of remuneration;Weightings
Procedure: Staff cases - unfounded

SUMMARY - CASE T-44/97 
Summary 
1. Officials - Actions - Time-limits - Successive complaints 
(Staff Regulations, Art. 90(2) and 91(3)) 
2. Procedure - Production before the Court of First Instance of the opinions 
expressed by the legal service of the Community institutions - Conditions 
3. Officials - Remuneration - Weightings - Regulation - Obligation to state 
reasons - Scope 
(EC Treaty, Art. 190 (now Art. 253 EC); Staff Regulations Annexes X and XI) 
4. Officials - Decision adversely affecting an official - Decision of the appointing 
authority applying a measure of general application to the individual situation of an 
official - Obligation to state reasons — Scope 
(Staff Regulations, Art. 25, second para.) 
5. Officials - Remuneration - Weightings - Adjustment to ensure equivalence of 
purchasing power - Obligation incumbent on the Community legislature - Failure 
to comply with time-limits - Not relevant 
(Staff Regulations, Annex X, Art. 13) 
6. Officials - Remuneration - Weightings - Provisions applicable to officials 
serving in non-member countries - Principles - Adjustment of the weighting with 
retroactive effect - Whether permissible - Pay slip - Provisional nature -
Recovery of overpayment - Whether permissible 
(Staff Regulations, Art. 64; Annexes X, Art. 13) 
I-A - 224 
GHIGNONE AND OTHERS v COUNCIL 
1. Whether one complaint under Article 90(2) of the Staff Regulations has been 
followed by a second complaint, where both these complaints have been the subject 
of two successive decisions rejecting them and where the applicant has complied 
with the time-limit for bringing an action in respect of the second of these decisions, 
the action against the second decision can be regarded as inadmissible only where 
the latter decision must be regarded as purely confirmative of the first decision of 
rejection. That is so where the second decision contains no new material by 
comparison with the first decision. 
(see paras 38-40) 
See: T-10/94 Kratz v Commission [1995] ECR-SC I-A-99 and II-315, paras 19 and 20; 
T-100/96 Vicente-Nunez v Commission [1998] ECR-SC I-A-591 and II-1779, paras 37 
to 43 
2. It is necessary to give particular protection to opinions of the legal service of an 
institution. It would be contrary to the public interest, which requires that the 
institutions be able to benefit from the opinions of their legal services, provided in 
complete independence, to accept that such internal documents might be produced 
in proceedings before the Court of First Instance by persons other than the services 
at whose request they were prepared, without their production having been 
authorised by the institution concerned or ordered by the Court. 
(see paras 47-48) 
See: Opinion of Advocate General Jacobs in C-350/92 Spain v Council [1995] 
ECR I-1985, I-1988, para. 35; T-610/97 R Carlsen and Others v Council [1998] 
ECR II-485, paras 45 to 47 
3. The statement of reasons for a regulation fixing the weightings to be applied to 
officials' salaries may be confined to indicating, on the one hand, the general 
situation which led to its adoption and, on the other, the general objectives which 
I-A - 225 
SUMMARY - CASE T-44/97 
it is intended to achieve. It is not required to address the technical aspects of the 
procedure for calculation. 
(see para. 54) 
See: C-30/96 P Abello and Others v Commission [1998] ECR I-377, para. 89 
4. In the case of a decision by which the appointing authority applies a measure of 
general application to the individual situation of an official, without having any 
discretion in that regard, the statement of reasons may be confined to a reference 
to the legislative measure and to an indication, if necessary in the circumstances of 
the case, of the reasons why the appointing authority considers that the conditions 
for the application of that measure to that official are fulfilled. The appointing 
authority is not required by the second paragraph of Article 25 of the Staff 
Regulations to state the reasons why the Community legislature adopted the 
measure. 
(see para. 58) 
5. The Community legislature is required to ensure that officials in Brussels and 
other places of employment in third countries enjoy equivalent purchasing power by 
adjusting weightings. That obligation is not extinguished solely because it was not 
fulfilled within the period prescribed by the Staff Regulations. Even on the 
assumption that the periods prescribed in Article 13 of Annex X to the Staff 
Regulations for the adjustment of the weightings are mandatory and that the 
Community legislature failed to fulfil its obligation to adjust the weightings at the 
prescribed time, such a breach of the applicable rules does not affect the validity of 
the regulations fixing weightings. 
(see para. 78) 
I-A - 226 
GHIGNONE AND OTHERS v COUNCIL 
6. Unlike the provisions of the Staff Regulations on the fixing of weightings for 
officials employed within the Member States, Article 13 of Annex X to the Staff 
Regulations does not provide expressly for retroactive effect where new weightings 
are fixed for officials posted to third countries. However, the principle of equality 
of treatment requires that new weightings should apply retroactively with effect from 
the date on which it is recorded that there is no longer equivalence of purchasing 
power. That principle, of which equivalence of purchasing power is an expression, 
underlies, not only Article 64 of the Staff Regulations on the fixing of weightings 
within the Union, but also Article 13 of Annex X to the Staff Regulations on the 
fixing of weightings for third countries, and, therefore, the objective to be achieved 
by fixing new weightings, in other words, respect for the principle of equal 
treatment, requires that regulations adjusting weightings for third countries should 
have retroactive effect. 
A provision which expressly gives the salary slips of officials of the Communities 
posted to third countries provisional status, to make it possible to take account of 
the retroactive adjustment of the weightings and which provides for the recovery, 
by the Communities of the amount overpaid as a result of that adjustment, is not 
contrary to the rules on the withdrawal of administrative measures. The retroactive 
fixing of those weightings is necessary to ensure equivalence of purchasing power 
and the salary slips cannot give rise to subjective rights other than those derived 
from the rules on remuneration which the salary slips implement. 
(see paras 87-90, 93) 
See: C-301/90 Commission v Council [1992] ECR I-221, para. 29; T-177/95 Barraux 
and Others v Commission [1996] ECR-SC I-A-541 and II-1451, para. 46; T-177/96 
Costacurta v Commission [1998] ECR-SC I-A-225 et II-705, para. 47; T-116/96, 
T-212/96 and T-215/96 Telchini and Others v Commission [1998] ECR-SC I-A-327 and 
II-947, para. 129 
I-A - 227