JUDGMENT OF THE CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL

(Second Chamber)

12 March 2009

Case F-104/06

Joséphine Arpaillange and Others

v

Commission of the European Communities

(Civil service – Contract staff – Recruitment – Classification – Former individual experts – Diplomas – Professional experience – Plea of illegality)

Application: brought under Articles 236 EC and 152 EA, in which Mrs Arpaillange and four other members of the Commission’s contract staff seek, in particular, annulment of the decisions on their classification taken by the authority authorised to conclude contracts, as shown in their contracts of employment.

Held: The action is dismissed. Each party is to bear its own costs.

Summary

1. Officials – Contract staff – Classification – Staff in function group IV

(Conditions of Employment of Other Servants, Arts 79(2) and 86)

2. Officials – Equal treatment – Different treatment for different categories of staff as regards guarantees under the Staff Regulations and social security benefits – No discrimination

3. Officials – Actions – Claim for compensation related to a claim for annulment – Rejection of claim for annulment leading to rejection of claim for compensation

(Staff Regulations, Arts 90 and 91)

1. It follows from Article 79(2) of the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants that the administration enjoys a certain discretion in fixing the number of years of professional experience required for the classification of contract staff. Since Article 86 of the Conditions of Employment provides for contract staff referred to in Article 3a to be classified in only three grades for function group IV, the difference between the lower and upper limits of the period of professional experience required for each of the three grades is necessarily large. Thus, identical treatment for contract staff in different situations as regards the duration of their professional experience forms an integral part of a system which divides contract staff referred to in Article 3a into three grades in function group IV.

(see paras 48, 50, 52)

See:

T-213/00 CMA CGM and Others v Commission [2003] ECR II‑913, paras 405 to 410

2. Since the Community legislature is free to create new categories of staff corresponding to the Community administration’s legitimate requirements, and as the differences in status between the various categories of persons employed by the Communities, whether as officials properly so called or in the various categories of staff covered by the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants, cannot be called into question, since each of those categories is defined in accordance with the legitimate requirements of the Community administration and the nature of the permanent or temporary tasks which it has to perform, the fact that some categories of persons employed by the Communities may enjoy guarantees under the Staff Regulations and social security benefits which are not given to other categories cannot be regarded as discrimination. In particular, the contract staff referred to in Article 3a and Article 3b respectively of the Conditions of Employment are in different staff categories, especially in that the latter, unlike the former, may conclude contracts of employment for only a limited duration, with the result that they have a different classification and therefore different levels of remuneration.

(see paras 60, 61, 63, 97)

See:

118/82 to 123/82 Celant and Others v Commission [1983] ECR 2995, para. 22

T-121/97 Ryan v Court of Auditors [1998] ECR II‑3885, paras 98 and 104; T-415/06 P De Smedt v Commission [2007] ECR-SC I‑B‑1‑0000 and II‑B‑1‑0000, paras 54 and 55

F-59/05 De Smedt v Commission [2006] ECR-SC I‑A‑1‑109 and II‑A‑1‑409, paras 71 and 76

3. In actions brought by officials, a claim for compensation for damage must be rejected where it is closely related to a claim for annulment which has itself been rejected either as inadmissible or as unfounded.

(see para. 137)

See:

T-330/03 Liakoura v Council [2004] ECR-SC I‑A‑191 and II‑859, para. 69; T‑155/03, T‑157/03 and T‑331/03 Cwik v Commission [2005] ECR-SC I‑A‑411 and II‑1865, para. 207