4.

In his application in Case 21/83 Aristides Vlachos advances two series of submissions based, on the one hand, on the assurances given to him by the appointing authority about his grading and, on the other hand, on the application of Articles 31 and 32 to determine his grade and step. The applicant considers that the appointing authority's assurances created a legitimate expectation on his part which was not fulfilled. He relies in this regard on the assurances to be found in the letter of 25 August 1980 which were borne out by his appointment ad interim as a lawyer-reviser as from 1 April 1981 and by the reports of the Selection Board in competition No CJ 14/81 and competition No CJ 149/81; in accordance with the condition set out in the aforementioned letter, those competitions proved that he was indeed one of the “best lawyer-linguists” in the Greek Translation Division. I do not think that those points can be accepted. The letter of 25 August 1980 was intended to allay the misgivings of the applicant, who was disappointed at having been engaged as a member of the auxiliary staff in Category A II, Class 4, by pointing out that that situation was only temporary because of the current budgetary situation. It offered the prospect of a career in the new language division once budget funds had been appropriated; normally his engagement would lead to his appointment as a lawyer-linguist in Grade L/A 6 and, if he was one of the best of those appointed, possibly as a lawyer-reviser in Grade L/A 5. Therefore, that letter, which was signed by the Deputy Director of Administration, had no other purpose than to inform the applicant and in no way committed the appointment authority to appoint him to the grade that he sought within a fixed period of time in disregard of the provisions contained in the Staff Regulations, which alone determine the procedures which the appointing authority must follow when appointing officials of the European Communities. Such appointments cannot be the outcome of an agreement because the relationship between the staff of an institution and the appointing authority is not contractual but statutory. ( 2 ) As regards the applicant's regrading in Grade L/A 5, Step 4, before the decisions of 29 and 30 June 1982 were adopted, it is thus necessary to examine the second group of submissions put forward by Mr Vlachos. The submissions based on Articles 31 and 32 of the Staff Regulations seem to me to be irrelevant having regard to the actual purpose of the application. As is quite plain from the preamble to the appointing authority's decision of 11 and 25 November 1981, after competition No CJ 14/81 the applicant was appointed as a probationary official and classified in Grade L/A 6, Step 3, in accordance with Articles 27 to 34 of the Staff Regulations. Thus two derogations were applied: in accordance with the consistent practice of the institution and as is allowed by Article 31 (2), he was appointed to the higher grade of the career bracket in which he had been recruited by internal competition (L/A 7 -L/A 6) and in application of Article 32 (2) he was graded in Step 3 in view of his professional experience. The applicant has in fact admitted that his grading at the end of that competition was governed by the aforementioned provisions; even so, he has maintained his claim to be established in a higher grade and step. However, he could be established only on the expiry of the compulsory probationary period provided for in Article 34 (1), i.e. on 1 July 1982, and that is precisely what the appointing authority decided to do on 30 June 1982. Without any competition, a grading in L/A 5, Step 4, was not possible except upon the application of Articles 45 and 46 governing the advancement of officials. However, as both the appointing authority and the applicant have recognized, those provisions were not applicable at that time because the applicant was not established (second paragraph of Article 45 (1)). The applicant's appointment as a probationary official in Grade L/A 6, Step 3 cannot therefore be regarded as a capitis deminutio. Even though the fact that he had been exercising the functions of a lawyer-reviser on a temporary basis enabled him to be classified until then in Grade L/A 5, Step 1, pursuant to the third paragraph of Article 10 of the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the European Communities, the wording of the notice of competition and the provisions of the Staff Regulations left the appointing authority no other choice. Moreover, from 1 October 1981, the applicant received a differential allowance under Article 7 (2) of the Staff Regulations precisely on account of his change of grade. Those considerations lead me to conclude that the application in Case 21/83 should be dismissed.