Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:2000:260
Date: 2000-11-08
Language of the case: French
Court formation: Second Chamber
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Concepts: Weightings;General
Procedure: Staff cases - unfounded

SUMMARY — CASE T-158/98 
Held: The application is dismissed. The parties are to bear their 
own costs. 
Summary 
1. Officials - Remuneration - Weightings - Fixing - Principles - Powers of the 
Council - Discretion - Limits - Judicial review - Limits 
(Staff Regulations, Annex X, Art. 13) 
2. Officials - Decision adversely affecting an official - Decision of the appointing 
authority applying a measure of general application to the individual situation of an 
official - Obligation to state reasons - Scope 
(Staff Regulations, Art. 25, second para.) 
3. Officials - Remuneration - Weightings - Special provisions and derogations 
applicable to officials serving in third countries - Principles - Adjustment of 
weighting with retroactive effect - Whether permissible - Salary slip -
Provisional - Recovery of amount overpaid - Whether permissible 
(Staff Regulations, Art. 64; Annex X, Art. 13) 
1. The principles of equal treatment and equivalence of purchasing power, 
applicable to officials and other staff employed within the Member States, also 
underlie the determination of weightings for third countries. Rules regarding the 
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weightings applicable to the remuneration of officials and staff employed within the 
Member States, such as: 
— the Council's obligation to determine whether there is an appreciable difference 
in the cost of living between the various places of employment and, if so, to 
draw the appropriate conclusions, 
- the absence of any margin of discretion for the Council as to the need to 
introduce a specific weighting for a place of employment if the cost of living 
there is appreciably lower than in the capital. 
are, therefore, applicable by analogy to Community staff assigned to posts in third 
countries. 
Appraisal by the Community judicature, in so far it concerns the definition and the 
choice of the basic data and statistical methods used by Eurostat for drawing up 
proposals for the fixing of weightings, must be confined to verifying that the 
principles laid down by the Staff Regulations have been complied with, that there 
is no manifest error of assessment of the facts and that there has been no misuse of 
powers. The Council enjoys a broad discretion with regard to factors and elements 
to be taken into account in fixing weightings for third countries in accordance with 
Article 13 of Annex X to the Staff Regulations. 
(see paras 55, 57-58) 
See: 59/81 Commission v Council [1982] ECR 3329, para. 32; C-301/90 
Commission v Council [1992] ECR I-221, para. 24; T-544/93 and T-566/93 Abello and 
Others v Commission [1995] ECR-SC I-A-271 and II-815, paras 53 and 56; C-27/97 P 
Apostolidis and Others v Commission [1999] ECR I-6709, para. 26 
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SUMMARY — CASE T-158/98 
2. In the case of a decision by which the appointing authority applies a measure of 
general application to the individual situation of an official, without having any 
discretion in that regard, the statement of reasons may be confined to a reference 
to the legislative measure and an indication, if necessary in the circumstances of the 
case, of the reasons why the appointing authority considers that the conditions for 
the application of that measure to that official are met. The appointing authority is 
not required by the second paragraph of Article 25 of the Staff Regulations to state 
the reasons why the Community legislature adopted the legislative measure. 
(see para. 78) 
3. Unlike the provisions of the Staff Regulations on the fixing of weightings for 
officials employed within the Member States, Article 13 of Annex X to the Staff 
Regulations does not provide expressly for retroactive effect where new weightings 
are fixed for officials posted to third countries. However, the principle of equality 
of treatment requires that new weightings should apply retroactively with effect from 
the date on which it is recorded that there is no longer equivalence of purchasing 
power. That principle, of which equivalence of purchasing power is an expression, 
underlies, not only Article 64 of the Staff Regulations on the fixing of weightings 
within the Union, but also Article 13 of Annex X to the Staff Regulations on the 
fixing of weightings for third countries, and, therefore, the objective to be achieved 
by fixing new weightings, in other words, respect for the principle of equal 
treatment, requires that regulations adjusting weightings for third countries should 
have retroactive effect. 
A provision which expressly gives the salary slips of officials of the European 
Community posted to a third country provisional status to make it possible to take 
account of the retroactive adjustment of weightings and which provides for the 
recovery, by the Communities, of the amount overpaid as a result of that adjustment 
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is not contrary to the rules on the withdrawal of administrative measures. The 
retroactive determination of purchasing power and salary slips cannot give rise to 
subjective rights other than those derived from the rules on remuneration which the 
salary slips implement. 
(see paras 85-87, 99) 
See: Commission v Council, cited above, para. 29; T-177/96 Costacurta v Commission 
[1998] ECR-SC I-A-225 and II-705, para. 47 
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