Judgment;Abstract — ECLI:EU:T:2021:113
Date: 2021-03-03
Language of the case: English
Court formation: Seventh Chamber, Extended Composition
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Procedure: Staff cases - unfounded

summary of those pleas in law’. According to consistent case-law, in order to guarantee legal certainty and the sound administration of justice, that summary of the applicant’s pleas in law must be sufficiently clear and precise to enable the defendant to prepare its defence and the competent court to rule on the action (see order of 25 September 2019, EM Research Organisation v EUIPO, C‑728/18 P, not published, EU:C:2019:781, paragraph 8 and the case-law cited). A mere abstract statement of the pleas in law in the application does not satisfy those requirements. 56 In the present case, it should be noted that paragraphs 61 to 67 of the application contain a summary of the legal arguments by which the applicant challenges by his fourth plea, alleging infringement of the EU rules on the use of languages, the lawfulness of the notice of competition in the light of Council Regulation No 1 of 15 April 1958 determining the languages to be used by the European Economic Community (OJ 1958 L 17, p. 385), as amended by Council Regulation (EU) No 517/2013 of 13 May 2013 adapting certain regulations and decisions in the fields of free movement of goods, freedom of movement for persons, company law, competition policy, agriculture, food safety, veterinary and phytosanitary policy, transport policy, energy, taxation, statistics, trans-European networks, judiciary and fundamental rights, justice, freedom and security, environment, customs union, external relations, foreign, security and defence policy and institutions, by reason of the accession of the Republic of Croatia (OJ 2013 L 158, p. 1) (‘Regulation No 1’), and of the principle of equal treatment. That summary is sufficiently clear and precise to enable the Parliament to prepare its defence and the Court to exercise its power of review. The fourth plea must therefore be declared admissible. 57 With regard to the plea of illegality in respect of Article 90 of the Staff Regulations, it should be noted that the application, in an introductory section, defines the subject matter of the action in a sentence listing the measures the annulment of which is sought, namely, the acts of 7 December 2017 and 21 December 2017, the letters of 1 March 2018 and 22 March 2018, the decision of 23 July 2018 and the notice of competition. 58 After giving that list, the application contains the following sentence: ‘as a preliminary matter, where appropriate, declare Article 90 of the Staff Regulations invalid and inapplicable in the present proceedings under Article 277 [TFEU]’. 59 That request is not supported by any arguments, in law or in fact, developed in the remainder of the application. The application therefore does not set out the essential elements of fact and law on which the request to declare Article 90 of the Staff Regulations unlawful, by way of a plea of illegality, is based. 60 In order to refute the Parliament’s argument that there has been an infringement of Article 76(d) of the Rules of Procedure, the applicant sets out, in paragraphs 19 to 23 of his reply, several arguments seeking to demonstrate the unlawfulness of Article 90 of the Staff Regulations. 61 However, the applicant did not provide any justification for the late submission of such an argument. 62 In those circumstances, in the absence of any argument in the application in support of the plea of illegality in respect of Article 90 of the Staff Regulations, it must be held that the application does not satisfy the conditions laid down in Article 76(d) of the Rules of Procedure. Therefore, the application for a declaration that Article 90 of the Staff Regulations does not apply should be declared inadmissible. Substance 63 In support of his action, the applicant relies on four pleas in law, alleging, first, infringement of the obligation to state reasons, secondly, infringement of the principles of proportionality and sound administration and of the rights of the defence, the right to be heard and Article 41 of the Charter, thirdly, infringement of the right to sound administration and, fourthly, infringement of Regulation No 1 and the principles of equal treatment and non-discrimination. The Court considers that it is appropriate to rearrange those pleas in order to examine in turn the complaints alleging, first, infringement of the obligation to state reasons, secondly, infringement of the right to be heard, of the rights of the defence and of Article 41 of the Charter, thirdly, infringement of the principles of sound administration and proportionality and, fourthly, infringement of the EU rules on the use of languages and of the principles of equal treatment and non-discrimination. Infringement of the obligation to state reasons 64 The applicant submits that the decision of 23 July 2018 and the decisions that preceded it are vitiated by a manifestly insufficient statement of reasons. The Parliament failed to explain why it did not tell him that the list of annexes was missing from his application even though the deadline for applications had not expired. In the event that the Parliament’s services had access to his evaluation grid, the applicant asks the Court to order the Parliament to produce those documents. 65 The Parliament disputes that contention. 66 The Court recalls that the obligation to state the reasons on which an act adversely affecting an individual is based, laid down, inter alia, in Article 25 of the Staff Regulations, is intended, first, to provide the person concerned with sufficient details to allow that person to assess whether the act is well founded or whether it is vitiated by an error which will allow its legality to be contested and, secondly, to enable the Court to review the legality of that act (judgments of 26 November 1981, Michel v Parliament, 195/80, EU:C:1981:284, paragraph 22, and of 28 February 2008, Neirinck v Commission, C‑17/07 P, EU:C:2008:134, paragraph 50). 67 The reasons given for an act are sufficient when it is adopted in a context known to the official concerned, which enables that official to understand its scope (judgments of 1 June 1983, Seton v Commission, 36/81, 37/81 and 218/81, EU:C:1983:152, paragraph 48; of 12 November 1996, Ojha v Commission, C‑294/95 P, EU:C:1996:434, paragraph 18, and order of 14 December 2006, Meister v OHIM, C‑12/05 P, EU:C:2006:779, paragraph 89). 68 Moreover, the duty to state adequate reasons in decisions is an essential procedural requirement which must be distinguished from the question whether the reasoning is well founded, which is concerned with the substantive legality of the measure at issue. The reasoning of a measure consists in a formal statement of the grounds on which that decision is based. If those grounds contain errors, those errors will affect the substantive legality of the measure in question, but not the statement of reasons in it, which may be adequate even though it sets out reasons which are incorrect (see judgment of 17 December 2015, Italy v Commission, T‑295/13, not published, EU:T:2015:997, paragraph 122 and the case-law cited). 69 In the present case, the reasons that led to the rejection of the applicant’s application were communicated to him in the act of 7 December 2017 and the reasons for the rejection of his complaints were set out in the decision of 23 July 2018. That decision expressly states that the reason for that rejection was that there was no list of annexes, as required. That decision refers, in that regard, to point 5.3 of the notice of competition and to the second part of the declaration signed by the applicant confirming that the applicant was informed that the application form had to be accompanied by that list, failing which it would be rejected. Those reasons are set out in clear, precise and unambiguous terms, so as to enable the applicant to understand their scope, to assess whether to bring an action before the General Court and that court to review the legality of that decision. Therefore, the applicant’s complaint that there had been an infringement of the obligation to state reasons must be dismissed as unfounded, without it being necessary to order measures of inquiry. Infringement of the right to be heard 70 The applicant submits that the Parliament infringed the principles of respect for the rights of the defence and the right to be heard enshrined in the primary law of the European Union and in Article 41 of the Charter. The Parliament should have given him the right to express his views in writing before declaring his application inadmissible and allowed him to comment in writing on the grounds relied on for rejecting his complaint. The applicant could thus have attempted to convince the Parliament to review his file to ensure that it contained all the relevant documents and to point out all the inaccuracies concerning his assessment. 71 The Parliament disputes that argument. 72 Concerning the opportunity to comment in writing before the adoption of the decision of 23 July 2018, it should be recalled that the right to be heard in all proceedings, laid down in Article 41(2) of the Charter, which forms an integral part of respect for the rights of the defence, while being less extensive than those rights guarantees every person the opportunity to make known his or her views effectively during an administrative procedure and before the adoption of any decision liable to affect that person’s interests adversely (see, to that effect judgments of 11 December 2014, Boudjlida, C‑249/13, EU:C:2014:2431, paragraphs 34 and 36; of 24 April 2017, HF v Parliament, T‑584/16, EU:T:2017:282, paragraphs 149 and 150, and of 14 December 2018, UC v Parliament, T‑572/17, not published, EU:T:2018:975, paragraph 86). 73 The question of whether there is an infringement of the right to be heard must be examined in relation, inter alia, to the legal rules governing the matter concerned (see judgment of 9 February 2017, M, C‑560/14, EU:C:2017:101, paragraph 33 and the case-law cited; judgment of 24 April 2017, HF v Parliament, T‑584/16, EU:T:2017:282, paragraph 154). 74 However, a person who lodges a complaint against an act adversely affecting him or her under Article 90(2) of the Staff Regulations may not, in principle, properly claim that he or she has not been heard in the pre-litigation procedure, in so far as the very purpose of the complaint is to enable the person concerned to make observations (judgment of 14 December 2018, UC v Parliament, T‑572/17, not published, EU:T:2018:975, paragraph 90; see, to that effect, order of 26 September 2019, Barata v Parliament, C‑71/19 P, not published, EU:C:2019:793, paragraph 49, and judgment of 2 April 2020, Barata v Parliament, T‑81/18, not published, EU:T:2020:137, paragraph 109). 75 Therefore, the argument by which the applicant criticises the Parliament for not having invited him to give his views in writing before declaring his application inadmissible and to formulate his observations on the grounds for the rejection of his complaint before the adoption of the decision of 23 July 2018 has no basis in law. 76 Furthermore, it is clear from the background to the dispute, as set out above, that the applicant requested a fresh examination of his application, lodged two complaints and lodged an appeal with COPAC. Thus, the applicant exercised his right to defend his interests at all stages of the pre-litigation procedure following the adoption of the act of 7 December 2017 rejecting his application as inadmissible. In the light of those factors, the applicant cannot reasonably claim that he did not have the opportunity to express his views in writing before his application was declared inadmissible and before the adoption of the decision of 23 July 2018 on the grounds for the rejection of his application. 77 The applicant’s complaint alleging infringement of the right to be heard must therefore be rejected. Infringement of the principles of sound administration and proportionality 78 The applicant criticises, in essence, the excessive formalism with which the Parliament rejected his application on the sole ground that there was no list of attachments. In the first place, the applicant complains that the Parliament infringed the principle of sound administration by failing to warn him and to allow him to complete his application form by providing the list of attachments before the deadline for the submission of applications and by failing to give him the opportunity to put his application form in order after that date. In the second place, the applicant complains that the Parliament infringed the principle of proportionality and committed an abuse of rights by declaring his application form inadmissible on a purely formal ground. According to the applicant, it would be absurd to consider that allowing him to put his application form in order infringes the equal treatment of candidates. 79 The Parliament disputes that argument. 80 The duty to have regard for the welfare of officials and the principle of sound administration reflect the balance of reciprocal rights and obligations established by the Staff Regulations in the relationship between the public authority and public servants and imply in particular that when the public authority takes a decision concerning the situation of an official, it should take into consideration all the factors which may affect its decision and that, when doing so, it should take into account not only the interests of the service but also those of the official concerned (judgment of 23 October 1986, Schwiering v Court of Auditors, 321/85, EU:C:1986:408, paragraph 18). 81 For competition procedures, it is, as a general rule, for the candidate in a competition to provide the selection board with all the information and documents that candidate regards as necessary for the purposes of examining his or her application in order to enable the selection board to determine whether that candidate fulfils the conditions laid down by the competition notice, all the more so if he or she has been expressly and formally requested to do so (judgment of 12 December 2018, Colin v Commission T‑614/16, not published, EU:T:2018:914, paragraph 48; see, to that effect, judgment of 12 July 1989, Belardinelli and Others v Court of Justice, 225/87, EU:C:1989:309, paragraph 24). 82 The balance of the reciprocal rights and obligations between the administration and the candidate requires, first of all, that the latter should read attentively and carefully the provisions in a notice of competition which is perfectly clear, precise and unconditional (judgment of 20 June 1990, Burban v Parliament, T‑133/89, EU:T:1990:36, paragraph 33). 83 As for the administration, it is settled case-law that in order to ascertain whether the conditions of admission have been satisfied, the selection board is entitled to take account only of the information provided by candidates in their application and of the documents which they are required to produce (judgments of 23 January 2002, Gonçalves v Parliament, T‑386/00, EU:T:2002:12, point 74, and of 25 March 2004, Petrich v Commission, T‑145/02, EU:T:2004:91, paragraph 45). Thus, a selection board is not required to make enquiries in order to ascertain whether the applicant satisfies all the conditions of the notice of competition (judgments of 21 November 2000, Carrasco Benítez v Commission, T‑214/99, EU:T:2000:272, paragraph 77, and of 25 March 2004, Petrich v Commission, T‑145/02, EU:T:2004:91, paragraph 49). It is not for a selection board, in the presence of incomplete or ambiguous documents, to contact the candidate for the purpose of clarifying those omissions and ambiguities (judgments of 21 May 1992, Almeida Antunes v Parliament, T‑54/91, EU:T:1992:65, paragraph 36, and of 6 November 1997, Wolf v Commission, T‑101/96, EU:T:1997:171, paragraph 64). 84 Thus, when clear provisions in a notice of competition unequivocally require candidates to enclose supporting documents with their application form, a candidate’s failure to comply with that obligation cannot enable or, a fortiori, oblige the selection board or the appointing authority to act contrary to that notice of competition (judgments of 31 March 1992, Burban v Parliament, C‑255/90 P, EU:C:1992:153, paragraph 12; of 23 January 2002, Gonçalves v Parliament, T‑386/00, EU:T:2002:12, paragraph 74, and of 25 March 2004, Petrich v Commission, T‑145/02, EU:T:2004:91, paragraph 49). In such a situation, failure to submit the required documents is therefore a valid ground for non-admission to the competition. 85 On the other hand, if the terms of the notice of competition are vague or ambiguous, the administration is then obliged to exercise its discretion, taking into account the candidate’s interests, in accordance with the duty to have regard for the welfare of the staff and the principle of sound administration. That is the case, for example, where a competition notice does not specify the formal requirements to be met by the required supporting documents. Thus, where the instructions contained in the notice of competition merely lay down, in respect of the submission of applications, that documentary evidence of the candidates’ education should be produced, but where it is also stated that candidates should provide certified true copies of diplomas or educational qualifications, the Court held that that only amounted to ‘practical advice to candidates, to whom any documents produced [were] not returned’. In such circumstances, it is for the selection board to determine whether the documents produced by a candidate are such as to justify that candidate being allowed to enter for the competition to be held (judgment of 25 April 1978, Allgayer v Parliament, 74/77, EU:C:1978:89, paragraph 4). 86 The Court has, moreover, accepted that, where a notice of competition refers, without further specification, to the concept of ‘supporting documents’, and the selection board interprets those words strictly as meaning an ‘original or certified photocopy’, it cannot, without disregarding the principles referred to in paragraphs 80 and 85 above, reject an applicant on the ground that he has provided only photocopies, without giving the applicant the opportunity to produce additional documents capable of regularising his application (judgment of 23 October 1986, Schwiering v Court of Auditors, 321/85, EU:C:1986:408, paragraph 20). In such circumstances, the selection board had to allow the candidate to submit certified photocopies instead of the simple photocopies initially submitted. 87 By similar reasoning, the General Court held that, where a competition notice does not specify that the candidate must produce documents establishing sufficient knowledge of an official language of the European Union, on pain of being refused admission to the competition, the selection board could not reject an application form accompanied by a declaration on honour as to the candidate’s language level on the ground that that application form was not accompanied by supporting documents (judgment of 19 July 1999, Varas Carrión v Council, T‑168/97, EU:T:1999:154, paragraphs 45 to 57). The General Court has also held that the equivocal nature of a document in support of a diploma could not, on its own, allow the selection board to reject an application without taking into account the statements provided by the candidate in his or her application form and the relevant aspects of the law of the Member State in which the diploma was awarded (judgment of 12 December 2018, Colin v Commission, T‑614/16, not published, EU:T:2018:914, points 44 to 66). 88 Those firmly established principles of case-law are applicable to a certification procedure such as that at issue in the present case. 89 In the present case, point 5.3 of the notice of competition required candidates to provide ‘a list of documents, which numbers and briefly describes each supporting document annexed to the application’ and expressly provided that failure to comply with that condition would result in the rejection of the application. 90 That condition is also reiterated in the application form, which contained the following statement: ‘2. I am aware that my application will be rejected if I fail to fill in all the sections of this application form and to submit it, within the prescribed deadline, with all the supporting documents required, including a list of documents which numbers and briefly describes each supporting document annexed to the application (point 5 of the call for applications)’. 91 That text is found at the very end of the application form and immediately precedes the space reserved for the candidate’s signature. It appears under the heading ‘Declaration’, printed in capital letters in bold, so that it cannot escape the attention of the reader. The applicant signed that declaration. 92 It follows from those considerations that the terms of the notice of competition and the application form were clear, precise and unambiguous. When signing the application form, the applicant could not have been unaware that the absence of a list of supporting documents would result in the rejection of his application. 93 In those circumstances, in accordance with the case-law referred to in paragraph 84 above, the Parliament was not required under the duty to have regard for the welfare of officials or the principle of sound administration to warn the applicant of the defect in his application form or to invite him to rectify that situation. Before the expiry of the time limit for submitting application forms, the applicant could regularise his application form by replacing his initial application form with a complete file, containing the required list of annexes. In the present case, as the applicant had submitted his application form on 27 September 2017, he still had nine days to regularise the application. By contrast, after the time limit for submitting application forms had expired on 6 October 2017, compliance with the terms of the notice of competition and the principle of equal treatment did not permit the Parliament to invite a candidate to regularise an application form that did not contain the required list of annexes. 94 In order to respond to the applicant’s argument that such an interpretation of the rules governing the certification exercise at issue is disproportionate in the light of the seriousness of the consequences of the rejection of an application in relation to the purely formal nature of the missing list of annexes, it should be recalled that the principle of proportionality requires that the measures adopted by the EU institutions do not exceed the limits of what is appropriate and necessary in order to attain the legitimate objectives pursued by the legislation in question; where a choice is available between several appropriate measures, recourse must be had to the least onerous, and the disadvantages caused must not be disproportionate to the aims pursued (order of 14 December 2006, Meister v OHIM, C‑12/05 P, EU:C:2006:779, paragraph 68, and judgment of 5 March 2019, Pethke v EUIPO, T‑169/17, not published, EU:T:2019:135, paragraph 122). 95 Taking into account, first, the broad discretion which can be inferred from Article 45a of the Staff Regulations which establishes the certification procedure and, secondly, the broad discretion which, according to the settled case-law of the Court, is accorded to the EU institutions in organising their services and, in particular, in determining the procedure and conditions of competitions and in assessing and comparing the merits of applications in the context of any selection procedure, the General Court’s review in that field must be limited to the question whether, in the light of the factors which the administration relied on to establish its assessment, the administration has remained within the bounds of its discretion and did not use its power in a manifestly erroneous manner or for purposes other than those for which it had been conferred on it (see, to that effect, judgments of 9 October 2008, Chetcuti v Commission, C‑16/07 P, EU:C:2008:549, paragraph 76 and the case-law cited, and of 11 November 2003, Faita v CES, T‑248/02, EU:T:2003:298, paragraph 71 and the case-law cited). 96 It is therefore for the Court to examine whether the rule set out in point 5.3 of the notice of competition, according to which all applications had to be accompanied by a list of annexes, failing which they would be rejected, and on which the rejection decision is based, meets the abovementioned criteria. 97 It is necessary to examine whether that rule pursues a legitimate objective. The Parliament, in its written submissions and during the hearing, maintained, in essence, that that rule had two objectives. The main objective was to facilitate the administrative processing of application forms. The secondary objective was to determine the candidates’ ability to follow clear and unambiguous instructions. 98 In that regard, it should be recalled that the certification procedure at issue was intended to select officials in the AST function group in order to enable them to access posts as administrators, in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 45a of the Staff Regulations. The scale of the administrative tasks to be carried out in a fairly short space of time in order to ensure the smooth running of a certification procedure may justify the administration requiring the submission of a checklist enabling all the information and documents produced in support of each application to be determined. Furthermore, given the very nature of the certification procedure, it must be acknowledged that it is not unreasonable to expect candidates who wish to become administrators to show sufficient rigour and attention in following the instructions resulting from the clear, precise and unambiguous wording of the notice of competition. 99 Therefore, the objectives invoked by the Parliament, namely to manage the applications effectively and to determine the ability of candidates to follow clear, precise and unambiguous instructions, must be regarded as legitimate objectives in the light of the purpose of the certification procedure. 100 It must also be ascertained whether, within the discretion afforded to the administration for organising a certification procedure, the means used to achieve those objectives are appropriate and necessary. 101 In that regard, a checklist of supporting documents provides the administration, in summary form, with an overview of all the documents submitted in support of each application. The Parliament has rightly insisted, in this respect, on the variety of those documents, particularly from a linguistic perspective, on account of the diverse nationalities of the candidates. It should also be noted that such a certification procedure is of interest to a large number of candidates. It is true that, because of its internal nature, that procedure concerns a number of candidates which may seem relatively modest compared with recruitment competitions which sometimes attract several thousand candidates. Nevertheless, the potential number of candidates expected in such a recruitment procedure is far from negligible. The time constraints inherent in such a selection procedure must also be noted. That selection procedure was closed 190 days after the deadline for submitting applications by the publication of the list of successful candidates. 102 Having regard to the varied contents of the files, the number of candidates and the time constraints, the obligation to provide a list of supporting documents appears to be an appropriate means of contributing to the proper management of the certification procedure. Such a requirement cannot be regarded as placing an excessive or unreasonable burden on the candidates. The notice of competition drew the candidates’ attention to the importance of complying with that requirement in clear, precise and unambiguous terms, which cannot be regarded as contrary to the duty to have regard for the welfare of officials. 103 By providing that failure to provide that list would result in rejection of the application form, the rule set out in point 5.3 of the notice of competition is intended to encourage candidates to comply with that requirement. It is true that, since the list has a purely administrative function, its absence is not an obstacle to the assessment of the candidates’ individual merits, as may be the case where, for example, documentary evidence of a level of qualification or training is missing. However, without such a rule, candidates would have less incentive to check carefully that their applications are in good order. Apart from the fact that the absence of such a rule could lead in practice to an increased burden on the administration, it would, from a legal perspective, give rise to ambiguity as to whether such an omission may be rectified. 104 Consequently, in adopting the decision rejecting the applicant’s application on the basis of the rule set out in point 5.3 of the notice of competition, the Parliament used its discretion within reasonable limits and did not use its power in a manifestly incorrect way or for purposes other than those for which it had been conferred on it. 105 It follows from the foregoing that the applicant’s complaint alleging the infringement of the principles of sound administration and proportionality is unfounded and must therefore be rejected. Infringement of the rules on the use of languages established by Regulation No 1 106 The applicant maintains that, by not using Portuguese in the decision of 23 July 2018 and in the notice of competition for the 2017 certification procedure, the Parliament infringed the provisions of Regulation No 1. He claims that, although the case-law allows for the use of a few specific languages in case of specific and proven need of the service, that is subject to the adoption of rules of procedure in accordance with Article 6 of Regulation No 1 (judgments of 27 November 2012, Italy v Commission, C‑566/10 P, EU:C:2012:752, and of 24 September 2015, Italy and Spain v Commission, T‑124/13 and T‑191/13, EU:T:2015:690). In the absence of such a regulation, no derogation from the rules on the use of languages was possible. 107 The applicant was thus discriminated against in comparison with his colleagues whose mother tongue is English, German or French. The applicant states that the present plea in law must be understood as a plea of illegality in respect of the notice of competition in so far as he could not, at an earlier stage, directly contest that act in the absence of a direct and individual interest. 108 Furthermore, the applicant claims that, although his complaint was drafted in Portuguese, the Parliament replied in English without providing a translation. 109 The Parliament disputes that argument. 110 Without it being necessary to rule on whether, in the absence of special regulations applicable to officials and staff, and in the absence of provisions in this respect in the institutions’ rules of procedure, relations between those institutions and their officials and staff are excluded from the scope of Regulation No 1, it should be recalled that, in accordance with Article 2 of that regulation, which corresponds in substance to the fourth paragraph of Article 24 TFEU and Article 41(4) of the Charter, documents sent to the institutions of the European Union by a person subject to the jurisdiction of a Member State may be drafted in any one of the official languages referred to in Article 1 of that regulation selected by the sender, and the institution’s reply must be drafted in that language. As an essential component of respect for the linguistic diversity of the Union, the importance of which is recalled in the fourth subparagraph of Article 3(3) TEU and Article 22 of the Charter, the right for those persons to choose, from among the official languages of the Union, the language to be used in exchanges with the institutions, such as the European Parliament, is fundamental in nature (judgment of 26 March 2019, Spain v Parliament, C‑377/16, EU:C:2019:249, paragraph 36). 111 However, as is apparent from the case-law of the Court, it cannot be inferred from the European Union’s obligation to respect linguistic diversity that there is a general principle of law entitling each person to have everything likely to affect his or her interests drafted in his or her language in all circumstances, and that the institutions are required, without any derogation being permissible, to use all the official languages in all situations (see judgment of 26 March 2019, Spain v Parliament, C‑377/16, EU:C:2019:249, paragraph 37 and the case-law cited). 112 In particular, in the specific context of EU staff selection procedures, the Court has held that the institutions cannot be required to comply with obligations going beyond the requirements laid down in Article 1d of the Staff Regulations (see judgment of 26 March 2019, Spain v Parliament, C‑377/16, EU:C:2019:249, paragraph 39 and the case-law cited). 113 It follows from Article 1d(1) and the first sentence of Article 1d(6) of the Staff Regulations that, although it is not excluded that the interests of the service may justify restricting the choice of languages of communication between candidates and the administration to a limited number of official languages which are the most widely known in the European Union, such a restriction must nevertheless be based on elements which are objectively verifiable, both by candidates and by the Courts of the European Union (see, to that effect, judgment of 26 March 2019, Commission v Italy, C‑621/16 P, EU:C:2019:251, paragraph 124 and the case-law cited). 114 In the context of a notice of competition reserved to officials and staff employed in an institution, the requirement of knowledge of certain languages may be justified in the light of the internal nature of that competition, as candidates are in a position to understand the reasons for the languages required for the tests and the Court is able to review the choice of those languages (see, to that effect, judgments of 27 November 2012, Italy v Commission, C‑566/10 P, EU:C:2012:752, paragraph 92, and of 5 April 2005, Hendrickx v Council, T‑376/03, EU:T:2005:116, paragraphs 33 and 34). 115 Those principles are applicable in the case of a document addressed to all candidates in a certification procedure, such as that at issue in the present case, which is reserved solely for officials who have at least six years’ seniority (see, to that effect, judgment of 20 November 2008, Italy v Commission, T‑185/05, EU:T:2008:519, paragraph 132). 116 It should be recalled that the certification procedure is provided for in Article 45a of the Staff Regulations which states, in paragraph 1, that an official in function group AST may, from grade 5, be appointed to a post in function group AD. 117 In the present case, it is clear from the notice of competition that, in accordance with Article 4 of the Decision of the Bureau of the Parliament of 26 September 2005 laying down general implementing provisions relating to the certification procedure, candidates had, inter alia, to have at least six years’ seniority in the AST function group. It should be noted that Article 3 of that decision states that calls for applications launched pursuant to that provision must mention the importance for candidates to have an adequate command of at least one of the languages in which the training programme and tests referred to in Articles 5 and 6 of that decision are held. 118 On that basis, the notice of competition referred to the importance of such an adequate command and stressed that the training programmes and tests would be conducted in French and English. The notice of competition also stated that COPAC was to invite the candidates with the highest scores for an interview in order to evaluate their language skills in English or French, the languages used for the training programme referred to in Article 45a(1) of the Staff Regulations. 119 Furthermore, it is important to bear in mind that it is for the administration, which sends an individual decision to an official or other staff member, to word it, in accordance with its duty to have regard for the welfare of officials, in a language of which he or she has a thorough knowledge so as to be able effectively and easily to acquaint himself or herself with its content (see, to that effect, judgments of 23 March 2000, Rudolph v Commission, T‑197/98, EU:T:2000:86, paragraphs 44 and 46, and of 5 October 2005, Rasmussen v Commission, T‑203/03, EU:T:2005:346, paragraphs 61 and 64). 120 The fact that documents sent by the administration to one of its officials are drafted in a language other than that official’s mother tongue does not constitute any infringement of that official’s rights if he or she has a command of the language used by the administration which enables that official to acquaint himself or herself effectively and easily with the content of the documents in question. Thus, the notification of a decision rejecting a complaint in a language which is neither the mother tongue of the official or staff member concerned nor that in which the complaint was drafted may be regarded as lawful provided that the official concerned was able to have effective knowledge of it (see, to that effect, judgments of 23 March 2000, Rudolph v Commission, T‑197/98, EU:T:2000:86, paragraphs 44 and 45; of 7 February 2001, Bonaiti Brighina v Commission, T‑118/99, EU:T:2001:44, paragraph 17, and of 7 February 2019, Duym v Council, T‑549/17, not published, EU:T:2019:72, paragraph 110). 121 It is apparent from the documents before the Court that the applicant indicated in his application form that he had a ‘very good’ level of English, which was the highest of the three classifications offered to the candidates. He also signed the declaration at the end of the application form, which was in English (see paragraph 90 above). The applicant drafted the complaint of 2 February 2018 in English, which was dealt with in the decision of 23 July 2018 together with the complaint of 13 April 2018. In addition, the applicant drafted other documents in that language concerning the certification exercise which is the subject of these proceedings, in particular his application of 27 September 2017 and the appeal of 8 March 2018 lodged with COPAC. It also appears from the file that the applicant used English in his electronic communications with the administration to request a re-examination of his application file on 13 December 2017 and to forward the complaint of 13 April 2018. In that regard, it should be pointed out that the applicant, in an email written in English and sent on 13 December 2017 to the appointing authority, expressly stated that he had committed an error by omitting to forward the list of supporting documents in respect of his application, without, however, seeking to excuse that error on account of linguistic difficulties which prevented him from understanding the terms of the notice of competition. 122 The certification procedure at issue in the present case was not an external competition which had to be published in the Official Journal of the European Union in all the official languages and which was open to all citizens of the European Union, but an internal competition reserved for certain officials with more than six years’ service. It is therefore without infringing the abovementioned principles governing the EU rules on the use of languages that the Parliament was able to refrain from publishing the notice of competition in Portuguese. It was also without disregarding those principles that, in that notice, the Parliament requested the applicant to communicate with it in a language other than Portuguese and to have an adequate command of English or French. It follows from the foregoing considerations that the plea of illegality based on the infringement of Regulation No 1 must be rejected. 123 The applicant’s arguments criticising the drafting of the decision of 23 July 2018 in English and the fact that there was no translation into Portuguese are therefore unfounded and must, therefore, be rejected. 124 Since all the complaints directed against the decision rejecting the applicant’s application have been rejected on the merits in the light of the other acts and letters the annulment of which is sought in the present case, without it being necessary to rule on the admissibility of the applications for annulment directed against those acts and letters, the action is dismissed in its entirety. Costs 125 Under Article 134(1) of the Rules of Procedure, the unsuccessful party is to be ordered to pay the costs if they have been applied for in the successful party’s pleadings. 126 Since the Parliament has applied for costs against the applicant and the latter has been unsuccessful, the applicant must be ordered to pay the costs. On those grounds, THE GENERAL COURT (Seventh Chamber, Extended Composition) hereby: 1. Dismisses the action; 2. Orders João Miguel Barata to pay the costs. Da Silva Passos Valančius Reine Truchot Sampol Pucurull Delivered in open court in Luxembourg on 3 March 2021. E. Coulon S. Papasavvas Registrar President * Language of the case: English.