Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:2002:193
Date: 2002-07-11
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Concepts: Promotion
Procedure: Staff cases - successful

SUMMARY — CASE T-163/01 
Summary 
1. Officials - Promotion — Administration's discretion - Limits - Comparative 
consideration of candidatures in accordance with the principle of equal treatment 
- Judicial review — Limits 
(Staff Regulations, Art. 45) 
2. Officials — Promotion — Criteria — Priority to be accorded to merits — Taking 
into consideration of seniority and age — Conditions 
(Staff Regulations, Art. 45) 
3. Officials — Promotion — Consideration of comparative merits — Procedure — 
Mandatory taking into consideration of individual staff reports 
(Staff Regulations, Art. 45) 
1. The appointing authority has a wide discretion in assessing the merits to be taken 
into consideration in a decision on promotion under Article 45 of the Staff 
Regulations and the review by the Community judicature is confined to determining 
whether, having regard to the various considerations which may have influenced the 
administration in making its assessment, it has remained within reasonable bounds 
and has not used its power in a manifestly incorrect way. The Court cannot 
therefore substitute its assessment of the qualifications and merits of the candidates 
for that of the appointing authority. However, the discretion which the 
administration is thus recognised as enjoying is circumscribed by the need to 
undertake a comparative consideration of the candidatures with care and 
impartiality, in the interest of the service and in accordance with the principle of 
equal treatment. In practice, that consideration must be undertaken on a basis of 
equality, using comparable sources of information. 
(see para. 28) 
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PEREZ ESCANILLA v COMMISSION 
See: T-76/92 Tsirimokos v Parliament [1993] ECR II-1281, paras 20 and 21; T-262/94 
Baiwir v Commission [1996] ECR-SC I-A-257 and II-739, para. 66; T-221/96 
Manzo-Tafaro v Commission [1998] ECR-SC I-A-115 and II-307, para. 16; T-157/98 
Oliveira v Parliament [1999] ECR-SC I-A-163 and II-851, para. 35 
2. In a promotion procedure, the appointing authority is required to make its choice 
on the basis of a consideration of the comparative merits of the candidates eligible 
for promotion and of the reports on them. To that end, it has power under the Staff 
Regulations to undertake such consideration according to the procedure or method 
which it considers to be the most appropriate. The assessment of the merits of the 
officials eligible for promotion is therefore the decisive factor for all promotions, 
while the appointing authority may take candidates' age and seniority in grade or 
service into consideration only as a secondary factor. Where the merits of the 
officials eligible for promotion are equal, those additional criteria may even 
constitute a decisive factor in that authority's choice. 
(see para. 29) 
See: 62/75 De Wind v Commission [1976] ECR 1167, para. 17; T-557/93 Rasmussen v 
Commission [1995] ECR-SC I-A-195 and II-603, para. 20; T-280/94 Lopes v Court of 
Justice [1996] ECR-SC I-A-77 and II-239, para. 138; Manzo-Tafarov Commission, cited 
above, para. 18 
3. Although the appointing authority is entitled, for the purpose of undertaking the 
consideration of comparative merits which must precede any decision on promotion, 
to use a method consisting in comparing the analytic assessments of the officials 
eligible for promotion and the average of the analytic assessments of their respective 
directorates-general in order to eliminate the subjectivity resulting from assessments 
made by different reporting officers, that does not relieve it of its obligation to 
undertake a comparative consideration of the individual reports on the officials in 
question. 
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SUMMARY - CASE T-163/01 
However, the mere fact that the reports on the officials concerned are below the 
averages of the reports of their respective directorates-general does not in itself 
mean that those reports are 'comparable reports'. 
(see paras 36, 37) 
See: T-187/98 Cubero Vermurìe v Commission [2000] ECR-SCI-A-195 and II-885, para. 
85 
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