Judgment — ECLI:EU:F:2015:137
Date: 2015-11-18
Language of the case: French
Court formation: Third Chamber
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Procedure: Staff cases - successful

Summary Officials — Reimbursement of expenses — Installation allowance — Change of place of employment — Official entitled to the household allowance posted to the place of residence of his family — Exclusion of the right to the installation allowance — Condition — Necessity for the official to settle with his family at the place of employment (Staff Regulations, Annex VII, Arts 5(2) and (4)) The installation allowance is intended to enable an official who has been required to change his place of residence, in order to comply with his obligations under Article 20 of the Staff Regulations, to discharge, in addition to the removal expenses to which a specific reimbursement applies, the costs inevitably incurred in relocating to a new place of employment for a substantial period. It is in accordance with that logic that the first sentence of Article 5(4) of the Staff Regulations, read together with paragraph 2 of that article, provides that an official who is entitled to the household allowance can only claim payment of half of the allowance to which he would normally be entitled, which is to say payment of one month’s basic salary, if he does not settle with his family in his new place of employment or does not resettle with his family in the event that he is transferred to the place of employment where his family has continued to reside. The situation of such an official, with regard to the purpose of the installation allowance, is comparable to that of an official who is not entitled to the household allowance, in that he does not face the additional costs of installing his family in the place to which he is transferred. To the same effect, the last sentence of Article 5(4) of Annex VII of the Staff Regulations, excluding the benefit of the installation allowance, will apply in circumstances where an official who is entitled to the household allowance is posted or transferred to the place where his family already resides and settles with them, because he will not have incurred installation costs. On the other hand, the same does not apply to an official entitled to the household allowance who does not settle or resettle with his family when he is transferred, even where his family resides in his new place of employment. In such a situation, the person concerned is liable to bear additional costs relating to his actual relocation to another address than that at which his family resides and may, in those circumstances, claim payment of the installation allowance, equal to one month’s basic salary. Consequently, the words ‘transferred to the place where his family resides’ in the last sentence of Article 5(4) of Annex VII of the Staff Regulations are to be interpreted as envisaging the situation where the official settles or resettles with his family at his place of employment. (see paras 33-37) See: Judgment of 9 November 1978 in Verhaaf v Commission, 140/77, EU:C:1978:197, paragraph 18 Judgment of 29 September 2005 in Thommes v Commission, T 195/03, EU:T:2005:344, paragraph 100