JUDGMENT OF THE EUROPEAN UNION CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL

(Third Chamber)

2 March 2016

FX

v

European Commission

‛Civil service — Temporary staff — Severance grant — Article 12(2) of Annex VIII to the Staff Regulations — Termination of service’

Application:

under Article 270 TFEU, applicable to the EAEC Treaty pursuant to Article 106a thereof, in which FX seeks annulment of the decision of the Office for the Administration and Payment of Individual Entitlements (PMO) of the European Commission of 16 June 2014 refusing to pay the severance grant which he had requested following the termination of his service in the Clean Sky Joint Undertaking on 31 October 2013, as well as compensation for the damage suffered as a result.

Held:

The action is dismissed. FX is to bear two thirds of his own costs. The European Commission is to bear its own costs and to pay one third of the costs incurred by FX.

Summary

Officials — Members of the temporary staff — Severance grant — Condition for granting — Termination of service — Definition

(Staff Regulations, Annex VIII, Art. 12(1)(b)(i) and (2); Conditions of Employment of Other Servants, Art. 39)

The severance grant provided for in Article 39 of the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants is not an end-of-service allowance to which the staff member concerned is automatically entitled at the time when his contract is terminated or expires, but is a financial measure coming under provisions of the Staff Regulations on social security. The termination or expiry of a temporary contract does not, therefore, in itself, automatically grant entitlement to a severance grant.

In that regard, Article 39 of the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants and Article 12(2) of Annex VIII to the Staff Regulations, read together in the light of the relevant provisions of the pension scheme to which they relate, can only be interpreted as meaning that a temporary staff member is entitled to a severance grant where he no longer holds a contract of employment because it has been terminated or has expired, and he does not intend to take up another post within the European Union, but he does not at that point satisfy the conditions for receiving an immediate or deferred retirement pension or the conditions laid down in Article 12(1)(b)(i) to (iv) of Annex VIII to the Staff Regulations.

Furthermore, the concept of termination of service in Article 12(2) of Annex VIII to the Staff Regulations, applied by analogy to the case of a member of the temporary staff, must be interpreted on a case-by-case basis depending on the individual circumstances, precisely in order to prevent, as far as possible, payment of a severance grant to a member of the European Union’s staff who, at the time when he requests that grant, is well aware that, even though his contract of employment has come to an end, he might be re-employed by the services of the European Union because, for example, he has in the meantime applied for another vacant post in one of the EU departments. From that point of view, the automatic payment of the severance grant simply because the staff member’s contract of employment has been terminated or has expired would be contrary not only to the purpose of that provision, which comes under the section of the Staff Regulations on social security, but also to the general principle of the sound administration of the European Union’s finances.

(see paras 31-33, 36)

See:

Judgment of 9 October 2007 in Bellantone v Court of Auditors, F‑85/06, EU:F:2007:171, paras 67 and 72