JUDGMENT OF THE CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL (Second Chamber)

5 July 2007

Case F-24/06

Sabrina Abarca Montiel and Others

v

Commission of the European Communities

(Civil service – Members of the contract staff – Grading and remuneration – Office for Infrastructure and Logistics Brussels (OIB) – Nursery attendants – Former salaried employees under Belgian law – Change of applicable regime – Equal treatment)

Application: brought under Articles 236 EC and 152 EA, in which Mrs Abarca Montiel and 19 other members of the Commission’s contract staff seek annulment of the decisions of the authority empowered to conclude contracts of employment fixing their grades and remuneration under contracts for members of the contract staff signed in April 2005 which took effect on 1 May 2005, and annulment of the same authority’s decisions of 21 November 2005 dismissing their complaints against those earlier decisions.

Held: The decisions by which the Commission fixed the applicants’ remuneration under the contracts for members of the contract staff signed in April 2005 are annulled. The remainder of the action is dismissed. The Commission is ordered to bear its own costs and to pay half of the applicants’ costs. The applicants are ordered to bear half of their own costs.

Summary

1. Officials – Contract staff – Grading

(Conditions of Employment of Other Servants, Arts 80(2) and 82(2))

2. Officials – Contract staff – Remuneration

(Conditions of Employment of Other Servants, Annex, Art. 2(2))

3. Officials – Contract staff – Remuneration

(Conditions of Employment of Other Servants, Annex, Art. 2(2))

1. According to Article 82(2) of the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants, the minimum education and professional experience required for recruitment as a member of the contract staff in function groups II and III are the same: the person concerned must have a level of post-secondary education attested by a diploma, or a level of secondary education attested by a diploma giving access to post-secondary education, together with, in the latter case, appropriate professional experience of at least three years, or, where justified in the interest of the service, professional training or professional experience of an equivalent level.

The details provided in Article 2(1)(b) and (c) of the general implementing provisions on the engagement and the use of contract staff at the Commission are not such as to call that statement into question, particularly as regards the requirement for a level of secondary education attested by a diploma giving access to post-secondary education. The latter diploma gives access to jobs in both function groups II and III, provided that the holder can claim appropriate professional experience of three years.

That being so, the fact that the staff concerned can claim a diploma giving access to post-secondary education cannot in itself justify their recruitment to function group III rather than function group II.

Moreover, the Commission has adopted general implementing provisions for the transitional measures applicable to staff employed by the Office for Infrastructure in Brussels in the day nurseries and kindergartens in Brussels in order to circumscribe its discretion in applying Article 80(2) of the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants, which defines the duties of the different function groups. It is clear from Article 1(2)(b) and (c) of those general implementing provisions that persons employed as nursery attendants belong to function group II, unless they have the status of ‘staff administrative coordinator under Belgian law’, in which case they belong to function group III.

While it is true that Article 5(1) of those general implementing provisions allows the Commission to engage a member of the contract staff in function group III if he possesses a nursery assistant’s diploma, the use of the verb ‘may’ in that provision makes it clear that it is merely an option available to the institution. The discrepancy between the English version of Article 5(1), which refers to the conditions laid down in Article 1 of the general implementing provisions, and the French version, which does not contain such a reference, does not affect the fact that it is optional for the institution to classify members of the contractual staff who hold a nursery assistant’s diploma in function group III.

(see paras 47-50, 53-54)

2. It is clear from the wording of Article 2(2) of the Annex to the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants that where a worker previously linked to the institution under an employment contract governed by national law has been engaged as a member of the contract staff, resulting in a reduction in his remuneration compared with what he received under the previous contract, the payment of an additional amount of remuneration is merely an option available to the institution. Moreover, Article 2(2) allows the institution a very broad discretion to fix the additional amount in so far as it must take into account differences between the national fiscal, social security and pension legislation that applied under the previous contract and the rules applicable to the contract staff member.

The Commission has applied Article 2(2) of the Annex to the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants by adopting Articles 7 and 8 of the general implementing provisions for the transitional measures applicable to staff employed by the Office for Infrastructure in Brussels in the day nurseries and kindergartens in Brussels, together with Annexes I to III of those general implementing provisions. Under the latter provisions, it has in fact undertaken to pay an additional amount to certain categories of contract staff in accordance with the rules laid down in those provisions. Those rules for the application of Article 2(2) of the Annex to the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants must not, however, infringe higher rules of civil service law.

(see paras 92-93, 95)

3. In order to ascertain whether the inclusion of family allowances in the definition of net remuneration as a contract staff member on the one hand, and as a salaried employee under national law on the other, is likely to penalise contract staff who, on the dates referred to in Articles 7 and 8 of the general implementing provisions for the transitional measures applicable to staff employed by the Office for Infrastructure in Brussels in the day nurseries and kindergartens in Brussels, had dependent children as compared with those who, on the same dates, did not, it is important to note, first, that those two categories of contract staff are placed in comparable situations for the purposes of Article 2(2) of the Annex to the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants, which aims to compensate for any reduction in remuneration resulting from the fact that the workers concerned have gained the status of contract staff.

Secondly, the inclusion of family allowances in the definition of net remuneration as a contract staff member on the one hand, and as a salaried employee under national law on the other, directly affects the additional amount fixed as a result of comparing those net remunerations in accordance with the rules laid down in Annex I to the general implementing provisions. Where the amount of the Community family allowances included in the first of the cases compared is higher than the allowances received under the legislation of the Member State of employment and included in the second of the cases compared, the additional amount paid to those who already have one or more dependent children on the day when they gain the status of contract staff would be correspondingly reduced.

It follows that the inclusion of family allowances in the definition of remuneration is likely to create differences of treatment in terms of salary depending on whether or not the contract staff member concerned had dependent children on the dates provided for in Articles 7 and 8 of the general implementing provisions, to the detriment of staff members who did have one or more dependent children on those same dates. The fact that family allowances constitute a component of the remuneration which the Communities are obliged to pay to their officials or other staff cannot, however, justify differences in treatment between contract staff where it is simply a question of paying them additional salary to compensate for a reduction in remuneration resulting from the move from a national law regime to a Community law regime.

Consequently, in the absence of any objective justification, paragraphs A and B of Annex I to the general implementing provisions for the transitional measures applicable to staff employed by the Office for Infrastructure in Brussels in the day nurseries and kindergartens in Brussels, to which Article 7 of those same general implementing provisions refers, infringes the general principle of equal treatment.

(see paras 96-101)