Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2001:481
Date: 2001-09-20
Language of the case: French
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Procedure: Appeal - unfounded;Staff cases

Summary of the Judgment 
1. Officials — Actions — Prior administrative complaint — Requirement that subject-
matter and grounds be the same — Pleas in law and arguments not appearing in the 
complaint, but closely linked to it — Admissibility — Failure to allege, even 
implicitly, in the pre-litigation procedure an infringement of the third and fourth 
paragraphs of Article 24 of the Staff Regulations — Inadmissibility 
(Staff Regulations, Art. 24, paras. 3 and 4, Arts. 90 and 91) 
2. Appeals — Grounds — Inadequate or contradictory grounds — Admissibility 
I - 10315 
SUMMARY — CASE C-446/00 P 
3. Officials — Promotion — Consideration of the comparative merits — Automatic 
promotion of officials appearing on the list of the most deserving officials in the 
preceding year — Unlawfulness 
(Staff Regulations, Art. 45, para. 1) 
1. In staff cases, the claims before the 
Community court may be based only 
on grounds of challenge having the 
same legal basis as those raised in the 
complaint. The former may be devel­
oped before the Court by the submis­
sion of pleas and arguments which do 
not necessarily appear in the com­
plaint, but must be closely linked to it. 
Where the complaint does not 
expressly refer either to the third and 
fourth paragraphs of Article 24 of the 
Staff Regulations or to the concept of 
further training and instruction which 
is the subject of those provisions, but 
only to mobility and the career devel­
opment of officials, such a complaint 
cannot be regarded, even on a very 
liberal construction, as containing the 
information from which the appointing 
authority could have inferred that it 
included an allegation of infringement 
of the third and fourth paragraphs of 
Article 24 of the Staff Regulations. 
(see paras 12-13, 16) 
2. The question whether the grounds of a 
judgment of the Court of First Instance 
are contradictory is a question of law 
which is amenable, as such, to judicial 
review on appeal. 
(see para. 20) 
3. The Staff Regulations do not confer 
any right to promotion, even on offi­
cials who fulfil all of the conditions for 
promotion. A practice of automatically 
promoting, save where they have 
become less deserving, officials who, 
in the preceding promotions exercise, 
appeared on the list of the most 
deserving officials but who had not 
been promoted, would clearly infringe 
Article 45(1) of the Staff Regulations. 
Promotion decisions presuppose that 
the appointing authority has consid­
ered the comparative merits of the 
officials eligible for promotion and 
the reports on them, in the context of 
each promotions procedure. 
(see paras 35-36) 
I - 10316