Judgment of the General Court of 19 April 2023 – PP and Others v Parliament
(Case T-39/21) 1
(Civil service – Officials – Health crisis linked to the COVID-19 pandemic – Decision authorising part-time work in order to take care of relatives outside the place of employment – No possibility of teleworking full time outside the place of employment – Irregularity in the pre-litigation procedure – Decision granting a request to work part time – No legal interest in bringing proceedings – Inadmissibility – Remuneration – Suspension of the expatriation allowance – Articles 62 and 69 of the Staff Regulations – Infringement of Article 4 of Annex VII to the Staff Regulations)
Language of the case: French
Parties
Applicants: PP, PQ, PR, PS, PT (represented by: M. Casado García-Hirschfeld, lawyer)
Defendant: European Parliament (represented by: S. Seyr, D. Boytha and M. Windisch, acting as Agents)
Re:
By their action under Article 270 TFEU, the applicants, PP, PS, PQ, PR and PT, seek, in essence, first, annulment of the decisions of the European Parliament of 14 April 2020 authorising PQ and PS to work part time outside their place of employment due to the COVID-19 pandemic and of 18 May 2020 authorising PP to work part time outside his place of employment due to the COVID-19 pandemic (together, ‘the decisions authorising part-time work’), the decisions of 7, 15, 16 April and 19 May 2020 suspending payment of the applicants’ expatriation allowance during the period they were working outside their place of employment (together, ‘the decisions suspending the expatriation allowance’) and the decisions of 6 May 2020 to recover the sums overpaid to PR and PT (together, ‘the decisions to recover overpayments’) and, second, compensation for the damage which they claim to have suffered as a result of those decisions.
Operative part of the judgment
The Court:
Annuls the decision of the European Parliament of 19 May 2020 suspending PP’s expatriation allowance;
Annuls the decision of the European Parliament of 7 April 2020 suspending PR’s expatriation allowance;
Annuls the decision of the European Parliament of 15 April 2020 suspending PQ’s expatriation allowance;
Annuls the decision of the European Parliament of 15 April 2020 suspending PS’s expatriation allowance;
Annuls the decision of the European Parliament of 16 April 2020 suspending PT’s expatriation allowance;
Dismisses the remainder of the action;
Orders PP, PS, PR, PQ and PT to bear half of their own costs;
Orders the Parliament, in addition to bearing its own costs, to pay half of the costs of PP, PS, PR, PQ and PT.
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1     OJ C 110, 29.3.2021.