ORDER OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

12 July 1996

Case T-93/96 R

Catherine Prėsle

v

European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training

‛Officials — Posting — Suspension of operation — Interim measures’

Full text in German II-1093

Application for:

suspension of the operation of the defendant's decision to post the applicant to Thessaloniki; interim continuation of her posting to the Berlin branch of the Information Office for Germany of the European Parliament.

Decision:

Application dismissed.

Abstract of the Order

In December 1985, the applicant was engaged by the defendant, the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (hereinafter ‘the Centre’) under a contract of employment for an indefinite period. The contract provided that the applicant's place of employment was to be Berlin, where the Centre then had its seat.

On 1 September 1994, the Council transferred the seat of the Centre to Thessaloniki, by Council Regulation (EC) No 1131/94 of 16 May 1994 amending Regulation (EEC) No 337/75 establishing a European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (OJ 1994 L 127, p. 1).

A ‘framework agreement’ of 23 January 1995 on social measures concerning the relocation of the Centre to Thessaloniki, concluded between the Centre's director and the staff committee laid down provisions concerning, inter alia, the establishment of staff (paragraph 4.1) and the eventuality of the persons concerned being unable to leave Berlin (paragraph 4.3). Those provisions, amongst others, were repeated in a letter of guarantee of 27 February 1995, sent to the applicant.

On 1 March 1995, the Centre's staff were made subject to the relevant provisions of the regulations and rules applicable to the officials and other servants of the European Communities, by Council Regulation (EC) No 251/95 of 6 February 1995 amending Regulation (EEC) No 337/75 establishing a European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (OJ 1995 L 30, p. 1).

The applicant was appointed as a probationary official on 1 April 1995 and as an established official on 1 January 1996.

Following a request by her under paragraph 4.3 of the framework agreement, the applicant, who is married to a lawyer practising on his own account in Berlin and the mother of two children, was posted for six months as from 1 September 1995 (the date of the actual relocation of the Centre to Thessaloniki) to the Berlin branch of the Information Office for Germany of the European Parliament (decision by the defendant of 31 July 1995, referring to its general decision of 7 July 1995).

The applicant's request for an extension of that posting was rejected by the defendant (note of 22 May 1996, received by the applicant on 29 May 1996).

Law

Having regard to the broad discretion which the institutions have in organizing their departments on the basis of the tasks entrusted to them and in assigning their staff accordingly, a reassignment decision, even if it causes inconvenience for the officials concerned, does not constitute an abnormal and unforeseeable event in their careers. In those circumstances, suspension of operation can be justified only by imperative and exceptional circumstances likely to cause the official in question serious and irreparable damage (paragraph 45).

See: T-102/95 R Aubineau v Commission [1995] ECRSC II-365, para. 23; T-24/96 R U v Cedefop [1996] ECRSC II-479, paras 61 and 62

Those principles, developed, in particular, in order to take account of the many workplaces of the institutions, may be transposed to this case, all the more so since, at first sight, the applicant's activity in Berlin is, essentially at least, carried out for the benefit of the European Parliament rather than for that of the defendant, the body to which the post she occupies belongs and which pays her salary (paragraph 46).

Paragraph 4.3 of the framework agreement does not prevent the granting of the extension requested by the applicant from being a matter within the discretion of the defendant, whose need to reintegrate the officials concerned in its departments may become more acute through the consequences of their continued absence (paragraph 47).

Moreover, even though it was only after some delay that the Commission made possible the mobility envisaged by the framework agreement (paragraph 4.3 of which was intended, in the applicant's submission, to allow officials to expect such mobility), that does not alter the assessment of the present case, the applicant having failed to make out a prima facie case that, without that delay, she would have been able to be transferred to an available post in Berlin (paragraph 48).

Whilst it is true that the contested decision is likely to have an adverse effect on the applicant's family life, the fact remains that she assumed the obligations of an official with full knowledge of what was involved and of the likely consequences as regards the place of her employment and hence her family life. That prevents the balance of the interests involved from leaning in favour of granting the measures requested (paragraphs 50 to 53).

See: U v Cedefop, cited above, para. 66

That conclusion is not called into question by the fact that, under the terms of the letter of guarantee, the applicant could keep her post only by accepting the status of an official. By reason of the very transfer of the seat of the Centre, which is not in dispute, and irrespective of the replacement of her initial employment status with the status of an official, the applicant was already obliged to decide, when the time came and subject to exceptional transitional measures, between an activity in Thessaloniki and the abandonment of her budgetary post. The need to make such a choice cannot therefore be pleaded against the defendant in these proceedings (paragraph 54).

On the professional level, the applicant's posting to Thessaloniki is not capable of affecting her chances of recruitment, by way of transfer, to a post outside the Centre (paragraph 55).

Operative part:

The application for interim measures is dismissed.