Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2000:331
Date: 2000-06-15
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 
Officials — Promotion — Consideration of comparative merits — Automatic promo­
tion of officials on the previous year's list of candidates considered most deserving of 
promotion — Illegal — Judgment of the Court of First Instance finding the procedure 
illegal — Inconsistency in the grounds — Error in law — None 
(Staff Regulations, Art. 45(1), first subpara.) 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-207/99 P 
For each promotions procedure, the first 
subparagraph of Article 45(1) of the Staff 
Regulations places the appointing authority 
under an obligation to undertake a con­
sideration of the comparative merits of the 
officials eligible for promotion and of the 
reports on them. 
Although the requirement of a considera­
tion of the candidates' comparative merits 
may take into consideration the fact that a 
candidate has already been on the list of 
most deserving officials in a previous 
procedure, it none the less requires that 
the merits of each candidate be assessed in 
comparison with those of other candidates 
for promotion, including officials who have 
not been previously on the list of most 
deserving candidates. 
There is no inconsistency in finding that, on 
the one hand, in the context of the promo­
tions procedure in issue, the officials on the 
previous year's list of candidates considered 
most deserving of promotion are included 
on the current year's list only on condition 
that they are not 'no longer deserving' of 
promotion and, on the other hand, that, in 
proceeding in this way, the appointing 
authority did not consider the comparative 
merits of candidates for promotion, in 
accordance with the requirements of the 
first subparagraph of Article 45(1) of the 
Staff Regulations. An assessment of the 
question whether a candidate is 'no longer 
deserving' of promotion, which is of a 
purely individual nature, does not mean 
that the merits of all the officials eligible for 
promotion were actually compared. 
For the same reason, the Court of First 
Instance did not err in law in holding that 
consideration of the question whether an 
official eligible for promotion is 'no longer 
deserving' of promotion was not equivalent 
to a consideration of the comparative 
merits, as required by the first subpara­
graph of Article 45(1) of the Staff Regula­
tions. 
(see paras 18-19, 23-24) 
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