Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2008:340
Date: 2008-06-12
Language of the case: French
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Procedure: Appeal - unfounded;Staff cases

Summary 1. Officials – Conditions of employment of other servants – Temporary staff – Member of the auxiliary staff – Difference (Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the European Communities, Arts 2 and 3) 2. Officials – Recruitment – Competition internal to the institution – Extension of entitlement to participate to members of the auxiliary staff – Obligation – None 1. It is clear from the provisions of the Staff Regulations and the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the European Communities that there are differences between the administrative status, recruitment requirements and conditions of engagement of auxiliary staff and those of officials and temporary staff. It follows from those differences that auxiliary staff are not recruited to fulfil a permanent role within the Community institutions. On the contrary, the outstanding feature of contracts for auxiliary staff is their precariousness since they may be used only to provide a temporary replacement or to ensure the performance of administrative duties which are of a transitory nature or which fulfil an urgent need or which are not clearly defined. Auxiliary staff therefore constitute a separate category which meets separate requirements of the institutions which employ such staff. 2. In accordance with the scheme and aims of the Staff Regulations and the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the European Communities, although the appointing authority has the right to allow the participation of auxiliary staff in a competition internal to the institution, that does not mean that it is required to open each internal competition to all persons within the service. Such a requirement would undermine the wide discretion which is accorded to the Community institutions in organising their services and, in particular, in determining the procedure and conditions of competitions in the interests of the service.