Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:2002:218
Date: 2002-09-18
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Concepts: Unlimited jurisdiction;Refund of expenses
Procedure: Staff cases - inadmissible;Action for annulment - successful;Staff cases;Staff cases - successful

SUMMARY - CASE T-29/01 
payable in accordance with Annex VII to the Staff 
Regulations and until the date of payment, less the sums 
already paid to the applicant by way of installation 
allowance. The annual rate applicable to that default 
interest is to be calculated on the basis of the rate fixed by 
the Governing Council of the European Central Bank for 
the main refinancing operations and applicable during the 
period concerned, plus two per cent. The remainder of the 
application is dismissed. The Commission is ordered to 
pay the costs. 
Summary 
1. Officials — Reimbursement of expenses — Installation allowance — Conditions 
for granting — Actual transfer of habitual residence — Concept of habitual 
residence 
(Staff Regulations, Annex VII, Art. 5(1)) 
2. Officials - Reimbursement of expenses - Installation allowance — Conditions 
for granting - Actual transfer of habitual residence - Duration of the period of 
installation at the place of employment — Official automatically retired 
(Staff Regulations, Annex VII, Art. 5(1)) 
3. Officials — Reimbursement of expenses — Installation allowance — Voluntary 
termination of service within two years — Refund by the official — Purpose — Date 
from which the period starts to run — Date of entry into the service of the 
Communities 
(Staff Regulations, Annex VII, Art. 5(5)) 
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PUENTE MARTÍN v COMMISSION 
4. Officials - Reimbursement of expenses - Resettlement allowance - Conditions 
for granting — Minimum length of service 
(Staff Regulations, Annex VII, Arts 5(1) and 6(1)) 
5. Officials - Actions - Subject-matter - Direction to the administration -
Unlimited jurisdiction - Claim for payment - Admissibility - Manner of 
enforcement of payment — Inadmissibility 
(Staff Regulations, Art. 91(1)) 
1. In order to be eligible for the installation allowance provided for in the first 
paragraph of Article 5(1) of Annex VII to the Staff Regulations, the official must 
fulfil one of the following two conditions: either qualify for expatriation allowance 
or furnish evidence of having been obliged to change his place of residence in order 
to comply with Article 20 of the Staff Regulations. 
With regard to the first of the two abovementioned alternatives, the installation 
allowance, which is flat-rate and indivisible in nature, is automatically payable to 
an established official, provided that he is entitled to the expatriation allowance and 
that it is established that he has settled in the place of employment. In that regard, 
there is, moreover, no need for the official concerned to show the existence of 
actual expenses or that he has been obliged to change his place of residence, since 
that would have the effect of reducing the alternatives provided for by the 
Community legislature in the first paragraph of Article 5(1) of Annex VII to the 
Staff Regulations to only one possibility. 
With regard to the second abovementioned alternative, the concept of habitual 
residence must be interpreted as meaning the place where the person concerned has 
established, and intends to maintain, the permanent or habitual centre of his or her 
interests. Moreover, irrespective of the purely quantitative element of the time spent 
by the person in a particular country, residence implies not only the actual fact of 
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SUMMARY - CASE T-29/01 
living in a given place, but also the intention of thereby achieving the continuity 
which stems from a stable way of life and from the course of normal social 
relations. 
(see paras 53-54 and 60) 
See: C-62/97P Commission v Lozano Palacios [1998] ECR I-3273, para. 21; T-63/91 
Benzler v Commission [1992] ECR II-2095, para. 25; T-33/95 Lozano Palacios v 
Commission [1996] ECR-SCI-A-575 and II-1535, paras 58 and 61; T-74/95 Monteiro da 
Silva v Commission [1996] ECR-SC I-A-583 and II-1559, para. 58; T-132/95 Gammeltoft 
v Commission [1996] ECR-SC I-A-611 and II-1633, para. 50; T-137/95 Mozzaglia v 
Commission [1996] ECR-SC I-A-619 and II-1657, para. 51; T-37/99 Miranda v 
Commission [2001] ECR-SC I-A-87 and II-413, paras 31 and 32; T-60/00 Liaskou v 
Council [2001] ECR-SC I-A-107 and II-489, para. 53 
2. A period of two-and-a-half months for the installation of an official at his place 
of employment for the purpose of complying with Article 20 of the Staff Regulations 
is not sufficient to demonstrate that the transfer of that official's residence to that 
place has actually occurred. However, that reasoning does not apply where the 
official has been automatically retired by the appointing authority, in accordance 
with Article 53 of the Staff Regulations, in response to the findings of the Invalidity 
Committee recognising, pursuant to Article 78 of and Annex VIII to the Staff 
Regulations, that the official concerned is affected by total permanent invalidity 
preventing him from performing the duties corresponding to a post in his career 
bracket. In such a case, the limited duration of the official's stay at his place of 
employment, which stems from the termination of his service with the institution for 
reasons connected with his state of health, is completely beyond the control of the 
official in question. In any event, even if such a situation also accords with the 
wishes of the official concerned, the fact nevertheless remains that his entitlement 
to invalidity pension for the abovementioned reasons arises because the interest of 
the service requires it. 
(see paras 67-68) 
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PUENTE MARTÍN v COMMISSION 
See: T-42/89 Yorck von Wartenburg v Parliament [1990] ECR II-31, para. 20; Miranda 
v Commission, cited above 
3. Reimbursement by the official of part of the installation allowance calculated 
proportionately to the part of the period of two years of service which remains to 
run is not intended to take account of the duration of the installation, since the cost 
of installation for a short period is the same as that of installation for a longer 
period. Its object is to make the Communities responsible for paying the whole of 
the installation allowance paid on the posting of the official to a place of 
employment only when the service relationship between the Communities and the 
official has been sufficiently consolidated by two years spent by the official in the 
service of the Communities. 
That period of two years must be calculated from the official's entering the service 
of the Communities and not from his taking up the duties which give rise to the 
grant of the installation allowance. 
(see para. 73) 
See: Yorck von Wartenburg v Parliament, cited above, paras 17 and 18; Case T-42/89 OP 
Parliament v Yorck von Wartenburg [1990] ECR II-299, para. 13 
4. In order to be entitled to the resettlement allowance provided for by Article 6(1) 
of Annex VII to the Staff Regulations, the official must fulfil the following four 
cumulative conditions: firstly, have terminated his service, secondly, fulfil the 
conditions laid down in Article 5(1) of that annex for entitlement to the installation 
allowance, thirdly, have completed four years of service and, fourthly, not receive 
a similar allowance in his new employment. 
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SUMMARY - CASE T-29/01 
Contrary to Article 5(5) of Annex VII to the Staff Regulations, relating to the 
installation allowance, the first paragraph of Article 6(1) of that annex merely refers 
to the completion by the official concerned of 'four years of the service' without 
specifying a date from which that period starts to run. Consequently, it cannot be 
a requirement that those four years must have been completed continuously and 
directly prior to the termination of service. 
(see paras 80, 83,84) 
5. Although, in disputes of a financial character, the Community judicature has 
unlimited jurisdiction under the second sentence of Article 91(1) of the Staff 
Regulations, allowing it to order the defendant institution to pay specified amounts 
together with default interest, it cannot dictate to the latter, even at the request of 
the applicant, the manner in which such an order is to be enforced, in particular 
payment to a third party of the default interest owed to the applicant. A claim to that 
effect must be rejected as inadmissible. 
(see paras 86 and 90) 
See: TA56/96 Valverde Mordt v Court of Justice [1991] ECR II-407, para. 150; T-130/96 
Aquilino v Council [1998] ECR-SC I-A-351 and II-1017, para. 39; T-197/98 Rudolph v 
Commission [2000] ECR-SC I-A-55 and II-241, para. 32 
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