Judgment of the General Court (First Chamber) of 17 May 2017 — Piessevaux v Council

(Case T‑519/16)

(Civil service — Officials — Pensions — Transfer of pension rights to the European Union pension scheme — Proposal concerning the crediting of additional pensionable years — Article 11(2) of Annex VIII to the Staff Regulations — New general implementing provisions — Equal treatment — Acquired rights — Legitimate expectations)

1. Acts of the institutions — Temporal application — Immediate application of the new rule to the future effects of a situation which arose under the old rule — Adoption of new general implementing provisions for Articles 11 and 12 of Annex VIII to the Staff Regulations — Application to the transfer of acquired pension rights applied for before the adoption of the new rule but effected after its entry into force — Infringement of acquired rights and of the principle of legitimate expectations — None (Staff Regulations, Annex VIII, Art. 11(2); Council Regulation No 1324/2008, Art. 2) (see paras 46, 47, 51-54, 82)

2. Plea of illegality — Scope — Measures the illegality of which may be pleaded — General measure providing the basis of the contested decision — Need for a legal connection between the contested measure and the contested general measure (Art. 277 TFEU) (see para. 56)

3. Officials — Pensions — Pension rights acquired before entry into the service of the EU — Transfer to the EU scheme — Adoption of new general implementing provisions for Articles 11 and 12 of Annex VIII to the Staff Regulations — Difference in treatment between officials who have had the capital representing their pension rights transferred to the EU scheme before and after the entry into force of those provisions, respectively — No breach of the principle of equal treatment (Staff Regulations, Annex VIII, Art. 11(2)) (see paras 62-66, 70)

4. EU law — Principles — Equal treatment — Infringement — Concept (Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, Arts 20 and 21) (see para. 67)

5. Judicial proceedings — Introduction of new pleas during the proceedings — Conditions — Amplification of an existing plea — Lawfulness (see para. 80)

6. Officials — Pensions — Pension rights acquired before entry into the service of the EU — Transfer to the EU scheme — Additional years of pensionable service — Rules for calculation — Discretion of the legislature (Staff Regulations, Annex VIII, Art. 11(2)) (see para. 85)

7. Officials — Principles — Protection of legitimate expectations — Conditions — Impossible to claim a legitimate expectation in the maintenance of an obviously unlawful measure (see para. 88)

8. Officials — Staff Regulations — Enforcement — General provisions — Information of the staff — Forms (Staff Regulations, Art. 110, second para.) (see para. 94)

Re:

APPLICATION based on Article 270 TFEU and seeking annulment of the Council’s decision of 7 October 2013 definitively fixing, for the purposes of the European Union pension scheme, the pension rights acquired by the applicant following the transfer of the rights which he had acquired, prior to entering the service of the EU, from national pension bodies.

Operative part

The Court:

1. Dismisses the action;