Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2000:166
Date: 2000-03-28
Language of the case: French
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Procedure: Staff cases;Appeal - successful

Summary of the Judgment 
1. Officials — Actions — Prior administrative complaint — Time-limits — Time-
bar — Re-opening of prescribed period — Condition — New fact — Decision 
altering the criteria for classification in grade on recruitment 
(Staff Regulations, Arts 31(2), 90 and 91) 
2. Officials — Equal treatment — Recruitment — Classification in grade — Reconsi­
deration — Right to request a reconsideration restricted to officials recruited after 
delivery of the judgment of 5 October 1995 in Case T-17/95 — Lack of objective 
justification 
(Staff Regulations, Art. 5(3)) 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-389/98 P 
1. The Commission's decision of 7 Febru­
ary 1996 altering the criteria for clas­
sification in grade of officials recruited 
after 5 October 1995 must be regarded 
as a decision of general application 
which called in question a number of 
administrative decisions which had 
become final and thereby constituted 
a new fact liable to have an adverse 
effect on officials recruited before 
5 October 1995 and allowing them to 
submit a request, within the periods 
prescribed in Articles 90 and 91 of the 
Staff Regulations, for a review of their 
classification. 
(see para. 49) 
2. The decision of 7 February 1996, 
adopted following the judgment of 
5 October 1995 in Case T-17/95 Alex-
opoulou, and altering the criteria for 
classification in grade of officials 
recruited after 5 October 1995, 
infringed the general principle of equal 
treatment laid down in Article 5(3) of 
the Staff Regulations, since the differ­
ence in treatment resulting from the 
fact that Commission officials 
appointed after 5 October 1995 could 
request that their classification in grade 
be reconsidered while those who had 
been appointed before that date could 
not, is not objectively justified by the 
fact that 5 October 1995 was the date 
of delivery of that judgment. 
For the purpose of complying with that 
judgment, it was not necessary, as 
regards officials who were not parties 
to the proceedings, to take 5 October 
1995 as the date on which the decision 
of 7 February 1996 was to take effect. 
Furthermore, although, in adopting 
that decision, the Commission dis­
played a regard for the welfare of 
officials who had been appointed after 
5 October 1995 and had not chal­
lenged the classification decision 
within the prescribed period, there is 
nothing to justify, or even explain, why 
it did not extend that concern to 
officials who had been appointed 
between 1983 and 5 October 1995 
and were in the same situation. 
(see paras 55-57) 
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