5.

I will now examine the complaint of infringement of an essential procedural requirement. The applicant makes two allegations in that respect, namely that the compilation of the report was irregular and that there was an inadequate statement of reasons, and bases her application for annulment on the judgment of the Court of 6 October 1982 in Case 206/81 (Alvarez v Parliament [1982] ECR 3369). In particular Mrs Papageorgopoulos complains that no entries were made under some headings, for example, those which should have shown her grade, her step, the principal duties which she carried out (in her case, the transcription of recorded tapes), her period of temporary assignment to the Internal Services Division of the Directorate General of the Economic and Social Committee and the observations of her hierarchical superiors. The Economic and Social Committee objects that these omissions are irrelevant for the purpose of forming a general assessment of the applicant. The principal duties carried out by a typist on probation, it states, inevitably coincide with the duties which were assigned to her. It is true that there were no observations by her superiors; but it is also true their intention in countersigning the report was to endorse the judgment of its principal author. As for the temporary assignment to the Internal Services Division, the report takes it into account in assessing Mrs Papageorgopoulos' knowledge of English and French as “very good” (during that time she worked with an English language administrator). Those arguments are persuasive; in any case, even if the report is vitiated by a number of irregularities of form, their lack of influence on the general assessment seems to me clear. One can be even more categorical in assessing the applicant's complaint that typing transcriptions from recorded tapes was not mentioned. In fact, by putting it forward, Mrs Papageorgopoulos demonstrates that she has a mistaken idea of her own duties because transcribing tapes clearly forms part of them. As I have said, the second allegation made by the applicant in her complaint of infringement of an essential procedural requirement is that the report contains an inadequate statement of reasons. The mentions “insufficient” and “very good” attributed to her in the report, she says, are not accompanied by the required explanatory comments. The Economic and Social Committee replies that for an explanation of the description “insufficient” the author made express reference to the general assessment (see above at paragraph 2). As for the mention “very good” which was given to Mrs Papageorgopoulos for her knowledge of English and French, the absence of explanation is irrelevant: explicit as it is, in fact, that description does not require further comment; moreover the applicant is required to work, not in those languages, but in Greek. Here, too, I am in agreement with the Economic and Social Committee. It is true that the fact that explanatory comments are required is apparent both from the form used for reports at the end of the probationary period and from the instructions for drawing up periodical reports and, as I have already noted, those instructions are applicable in this case. However, it should be pointed out that the space reserved for such comments is very restricted — so small that in practice it is only possible to make them in three or four words. It is important, however, that the assessment is adequately reasoned in order to enable the official, in drawing up his own observations, to take into account any charges levelled against him; it is also important — and Article 34 expressly provides so — that in the procedure at the end of the probationary period the principle of the right to be heard is observed. In the case of Mrs Papageorgopoulos, however, the general assessment does in fact set out the reasons for the negative assessment, concisely but adequately. Moreover the report was communicated to the applicant in accordance with the normal procedure; and, as shown by the observations which she made on it, there is no doubt that she was made aware of that assessment. The rules of adversary procedure were therefore fully observed; accordingly, Mrs Papageorgopoulos' reliance on the aforementioned judgment in Alvarez v Parliament, in which the Court declared a dismissal void because the statement of the reasons on which it was based was drawn up following “a procedure which was not of an adversary nature”, appears to be entirely irrelevant. It follows that inadequacy of the statement of reasons cannot be argued either with regard to the combined provisions of Articles 25 and 34 of the Staff Regulations or with regard to the rules governing the drawing up of periodic reports and applicable by analogy to the report on the probationary period.