Judgment;Information — ECLI:EU:T:2021:415
Date: 2021-07-07
Language of the case: German
Court formation: Fourth Chamber
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Procedure: Staff cases - successful;Judgment delivered after back reference

Summary — Judgment of the General Court (Fourth Chamber), 21 November 2018 1. Actions brought by officials — Interest in bringing proceedings — Action for annulment of a decision of the European Personnel Selection Office (EPSO) to reject a request for review of a decision of a competition selection board — Admissibility — Competition process having been finalised in the meantime — Irrelevant (Staff Regulations of Officials, Art. 91) 2. European Personnel Selection Office (EPSO) — Competences — Review of decisions of a competition selection board — Not included — Rejection by EPSO of a request for review of a decision of a selection board on the grounds that the request is out of time — Unlawfulness (Staff Regulations of Officials, Annex III, Art. 7) 1. If a request for review of a decision of a competition selection board made by a candidate in that competition is rejected by the European Personnel Selection Office (EPSO) for being out of time, that candidate has every interest in having the lawfulness of that rejection reviewed by the EU courts. Such a rejection prevents the selection board from examining the request for review itself, but its annulment by the Court would lead to a new decision being taken in relation to the request. If a request for review receives a positive response, the individual concerned will be reintegrated into the competition at the step where he or she was excluded, regardless of how far the competition has progressed. The fact that the open competition process may have been finalised in the meantime does not affect that situation since the applicant may also retain an interest in obtaining a decision on the lawfulness of the selection procedure at issue to prevent its alleged unlawfulness recurring in the future in the event of a similar selection procedure to that at issue. It is not impossible that EPSO might play a similar role in a similar selection procedure in future. In those circumstances, the institution cannot rely on the inadmissibility of the action on the grounds that the open competition procedure had been finalised in the meantime. (see paras 34, 35) 2. The European Personnel Selection Office (EPSO) cannot decide by itself to refuse to take the request for review made by a competition candidate into consideration notwithstanding the clear wording of the General Rules attributing that competence to the selection board. First of all, there is nothing in the wording of Article 7(1) of Annex III to the Staff Regulations, which governs the procedure for competitions, that would lead to the conclusion that EPSO has such a competence in cases where the decision to which the request for review relates was adopted by the selection board. Even though it follows from that article that the EU institutions entrust EPSO with responsibility for taking the necessary measures to ensure that uniform standards are applied in the selection procedures for officials of the Union and in certain assessment and examination procedures, it cannot be inferred that EPSO could, in that context, arrogate the power to adjudicate on a request for the review of a decision of the selection board. Similarly, it should be noted that, in accordance with Article 7(2) of Annex III to the Staff Regulations, the responsibilities allocated to EPSO fall within the areas of organising open competitions, providing technical support to institutions for internal competitions, determining the contents of examinations organised by the institutions and defining and organising the assessment of linguistic ability. The decision adopted by EPSO refusing to take into consideration a request for the review of a decision adopted by the selection board cannot be considered as a mere matter of technical support or assistance given to the selection board nor as falling within one of EPSO’s other responsibilities referred to above. Thus, EPSO lacked competence to reject the applicant’s request for review itself on the grounds that the request was, in its view, made out of time. (see paras 51-53, 58)