Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:2001:170
Date: 2001-06-27
Language of the case: French
Court formation: Second Chamber
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Concepts: Interpretation of Community law;Council
Procedure: Action for annulment - unfounded;Staff cases - unfounded;Action for damages - unfounded

SUMMARY — JOINED CASES T-164/99, T-37/00 AND T-38/00 
Summary 
1. Council - Power of internal organisation - Integration of the Schengen 
Secretariat into the General Secretariat of the Council - Detailed arrangements 
(Merger Treaty, Art. 24(1), 2nd subpara.; Protocol integrating the Schengen acquis 
into the framework of the European Union, Art. 7; Council Decision 1999/307) 
2. Community law — Interpretation - Methods 
1. Nothing prevents Article 7 of the Protocol integrating the Schengen acquis into 
the framework of the European Union, under which the Council is to 'adopt the 
detailed arrangements for the integration of the Schengen Secretariat' into its own 
General Secretariat, from being interpreted by the Council as authorising it to 
integrate the staff of the former Schengen Secretariat. 
As regards the detailed arrangements for this integration, that Protocol, which has 
the status of primary law, did not require the Council to follow a particular 
procedure. The second subparagraph of Article 24(1) of the Treaty establishing a 
single Council and a single Commission of the European Communities, far from 
itself establishing a recruitment system of general application, does no more than 
empower the Council to adopt the Staff Regulations of Officials of the European 
Communities and the Conditions of Employment of other servants of the European 
Communities, without laying down guiding rules or principles for that purpose. 
I-A - 136 
LEROY AND OTHERS v COUNCIL 
The Council was therefore authorised, under Article 7 of the Protocol, to establish 
a recruitment scheme independent of the provisions of the Staff Regulations of 
Officials of the European Communities and the Conditions of Employment of other 
servants of the European Communities for the purposes of integrating the former 
members of staff of the Schengen Secretariat, in order to ensure continuity of 
application of the Schengen acquis within its own General Secretariat. Moreover, 
the Staff Regulations and the Conditions of Employment do not constitute an 
exhaustive body of rules prohibiting the employment of persons otherwise than 
within the framework of those rules. 
(see paras 60-62) 
See: C-249/87 Mulfinger and Others [1989] ECR 4127, para. 10, and the case-law cited 
2. A provision of secondary Community law must, as far as possible, be given an 
interpretation consistent with the provisions of the Treaty and the general principles 
of Community law. That method of interpretation may legitimately be applied to the 
constituent documents of the procedure for creating an act of secondary Community 
law, where the question is whether that procedure complied with the primary law 
on the basis of which the act was adopted. 
(see para. 80) 
See: C-98/91 Herbrink [1994] ECR I-223, paragraph 9, and the case-law cited 
I-A - 137