Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:2018:963
Date: 2018-12-14
Language of the case: French
Court formation: First Chamber
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Procedure: Staff cases - unfounded

Summary — Judgment of the General Court (First Chamber), 14 December 2018 1. Actions brought by officials — Acts adversely affecting an official — Concept — Decision to classify an official in a type of post introduced by Regulation No 1023/2013 and having come into being by a modification made in the computerised personal files of the persons concerned — Included (Staff Regulations, Arts 90(2) and 91(1), and Annex XIII, Art. 30(2), as amended by Regulation No 1023/2013) 2. Action for annulment — Jurisdiction of the EU judicature — Application for annulment of an individual act adversely affecting an official — EU judicature’s lack of jurisdiction to declare a provision of general application unlawful in the operative part of its judgments (Arts 263 and 277 TFEU; Staff Regulations of Officials, Art. 45 and Annex I, as amended by Regulation No 1023/2013) 3. Officials — Promotion — Adoption of a new promotion system — Transition from the old to the new system — Administration’s discretion — Limits — Observance of acquired rights — Breach of principle of the protection of legitimate expectations — None (Art. 336 TFEU; Staff Regulations of Officials, Arts 29(1) and 45 and Annex I, Section A, point 1, as amended by Regulation No 1023/2013) 4. Officials — Promotion — Applicable rules — Principle of continuity of career — Principle not existing in EU law 5. Officials — Promotion — Adoption of a new promotion system — Transition from the old to the new system — Application of different rules to administrators in grade AD 12 or AD 13 than to those in lower grades and to those exercising the functions of head of unit or equivalent or adviser or equivalent — Breach of the principle of equal treatment — None (Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, Arts 20 and 21; Staff Regulations of Officials, Arts 4, 29(1) and 45, as amended by Regulation No 1023/2013) 6. EU law — Principles — Proportionality — Scope — Discretion of the EU legislature — Judicial review — Limits (Arts 5(4) TEU; Art. 336 TFEU) 7. Officials — Administration’s duty to have regard for the interests of officials — Principle of sound administration — Scope — Obligation for the administration to compensate for the loss of the eligibility for promotion of officials to the higher grade following a reform of the Staff Regulations — None (Staff Regulations of Officials, Annex XIII, Art. 30(2), as amended by Regulation No 1023/2013) 8. Officials — Decision adversely affecting an official — Obligation to state reasons — Statement of reasons when complaint is rejected (Art. 296 TFEU; Staff Regulations of Officials, Arts 25, second para. and 90(2)) 1. The decisions of the appointing authority to assign the applicants to the types of post ‘administrator in transition’ or ‘administrator’, introduced by Regulation No 1023/2013, amending the Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Union and the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the European, as indicated by a reference made to the assignment of the applicants to those types of post in the applicants’ individual files in the Human Resource Management information system known as ‘SysPer 2’, adversely affect them, in so far as they lose, with effect from 1 January 2014, their eligibility for promotion to a higher grade. (see para. 33) 2. See the text of the decision. (see paras 38-41) 3. See the text of the decision. (see paras 51-56, 109) 4. See the text of the decision. (see para. 59) 5. There is only a breach of the principle of equal treatment, a general principle of EU law enshrined in Articles 20 and 21 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and applicable to EU civil service law, where two categories of persons whose factual and legal situations are not essentially different receive different treatment in their classification and where that difference in treatment is not objectively justified. When that principle is applied, the situations to be compared must be examined taking account of all the factors characterising those situations. The principle of equal treatment implies that all officials promoted to the same grade must, in case of equal merit, be given the same opportunities to be promoted to a higher grade. As for administrators in grade AD 5 to AD 11, it must be found that they are objectively not in the same situation as that of grade AD 12 or AD 13 officials, since, unlike the latter, they have not yet reached the maximum grade for the type of post in which they are likely to advance. With regards to heads of unit and given the nature of the duties performed by them, which are substantially more significant than those performed by administrators who report directly to those heads of unit, the persons concerned, where they are assigned to ‘administrator’ or ‘administrator in transition’ types of post, cannot claim that they are in a situation comparable to that of the heads of unit in question. With regard to ‘advisers or equivalent’, it is apparent from the case-law that they, together with ‘heads of unit or equivalent’ or officials recruited by the Commission for the specific post of ‘senior expert’, must perform different or additional duties in relation to those performed by ‘administrators’ or even exercise supervisory responsibilities, resulting in ‘significant responsibilities’ or possibly responsibilities that are more significant than before, which are such as to justify that, within the framework of the new Staff Regulations, as amended by Regulation No 1023/2013, ‘legal advisers’ and ‘senior experts’ occupy the post ‘adviser or equivalent’ at grade AD 13 with the possibility of promotion to grade AD 14, contrary to the situation of ‘administrators’ at grade AD 12 or AD 13. (see paras 62, 64, 65, 67, 68) 6. See the text of the decision. (see para. 72) 7. The duty to have regard for the welfare of officials cannot be interpreted as requiring the appointing authority to compensate for the loss of eligibility for promotion to grades AD 13 or AD 14, as laid down by the EU legislature, by means of internal measures designed to create more ‘head of unit or equivalent’ or ‘adviser or equivalent’ posts, because such an approach would lead the appointing authority to disregard the will of the EU legislature by reducing the desired impact of the measures it has adopted as part of the reform introduced by Regulation No 1023/2013, amending the Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Union and the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the European. (see para. 80) 8. See the text of the decision. (see paras 114-116)