Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2000:297
Date: 2000-06-06
Language of the case: French
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Procedure: Staff cases;Appeal - successful

Summary of the Judgment 
1. Appeal — Admissibility — Assessment in relation to the case at issue — Institution 
ivhich intervened at first instance and was unsuccessful, in whole or in part, in its 
submissions — Sufficient condition 
(EC Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 49) 
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SUMMARY — JOINED CASES C-432/98 P AND C-433/98 P 
2. Officials — Termination of service — Release — Measure requiring a specific legal 
basis — Council Regulation No 2688/95 authorising the European Parliament to 
adopt measures to release its staff •— Actions of officials of the Court of justice 
pleading, by way of an objection, that Regulation No 2688/95 is unlawful •— 
Inadmissible 
(Council Regulation No 2688/95) 
1. The conditions governing the admissi­
bility of appeals laid down by Arti­
cle 49 of the EC Statute of the Court of 
Justice and the corresponding provi­
sions of the ECSC and Euratom Sta­
tutes are assessed in relation to the case 
at issue and that alone. The fact that 
the grounds of a decision of the Court 
of First Instance which is stated to have 
become definitive uphold an objection 
of illegality raised against a legislative 
measure does not prevent an appellant 
who has entered an admissible appeal 
from contesting the illegality of the 
same regulation in other proceedings. 
It is also clear from the second para­
graph of Article 49 of the EC Statute of 
the Court of Justice and the corre­
sponding provisions of the ECSC and 
Euratom Statutes that, if an institution 
which intervened at first instance was 
unsuccessful, in whole or in part, in its 
submissions, that is sufficient for it to 
be entitled to bring an appeal before 
the Court of Justice. 
(see paras 22-23) 
2. Termination-of-service measures, such 
as those which were permitted by 
Council Regulation No 2688/95, do 
not have their legal origin in the Staff 
Regulations and therefore do not con­
stitute a standard event in the careers 
of the persons concerned. Such mea­
sures to release staff must, on the 
contrary, be regarded as a practice to 
which the Community has resorted in 
specific cases in the interest of the 
proper functioning of its institutions. 
It follows, first, that a request to be 
entered on a list of persons having 
expressed their interest in such a mea­
sure presupposes the existence of a 
specific and lawful legislative provision 
which supplies a legal basis for it and, 
second, that even if there is such a 
provision, the institution concerned is 
not obliged either to grant the requests 
submitted to it or to make even partial 
use of the power conferred on it to 
decide to terminate the service of some 
of its officials. 
Since Council Regulation No 2688/95 
authorised only the European Parlia­
ment to adopt measures to release staff 
and cannot therefore provide a legal 
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COUNCIL V CHVATAL AND OTHERS 
basis for the requests of officials of 
other institutions, the Court of First 
Instance was wrong to declare admis­
sible an objection of illegality raised by 
officials of the Court of Justice against 
that regulation in proceedings for the 
annulment of a decision of the appoint­
ing authority rejecting their requests to 
be entered on the list of officials 
interested in measures for their release. 
The legality of the appointing author­
ity's replies cannot be affected by any 
defects in a regulation not applying to 
the Court of Justice. 
(see paras 28-34) 
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