JUDGMENT OF THE EUROPEAN UNION CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL (Third Chamber)

18 November 2015

FH

v

European Parliament

‛Civil service — Officials — Remuneration — Installation allowance — Article 5(2) of Annex VII of the Staff Regulations — Transfer to a new place of employment — Last sentence of Article 5(4) of Annex VII of the Staff Regulations — Exclusion of the installation allowance where an official who is entitled to the household allowance is posted to the place where his family resides — Necessity for the official to settle with his family at the place of employment — Separation of husband and wife — Consequences — Inapplicability of the last sentence of Article 5(4) of Annex VII of the Staff Regulations’

Application:

under Article 270 TFEU, applicable to the EAEC Treaty pursuant to Article 106a thereof, by which FH seeks, essentially, annulment of the decision of 15 April 2014 by which the European Parliament rejected his claim for payment of the installation allowance.

Held:

The decision of 15 April 2014 by which the European Parliament rejected FH’s claim for payment of the installation allowance is annulled. The European Parliament is ordered to pay FH, in respect of the installation allowance due to him, a sum corresponding to one month’s basic salary, to which default interest is to be added at the main refinancing operations rate set by the European Central Bank and applicable during the relevant period, plus two percentage points, from 11 February 2014 to the date of actual payment. The European Parliament shall bear its own costs and is ordered to pay the costs incurred by FH.

Summary

Officials — Reimbursement of expenses — Installation allowance — Change of place of employment — Official entitled to the household allowance posted to the place of residence of his family — Exclusion of the right to the installation allowance — Condition — Necessity for the official to settle with his family at the place of employment

(Staff Regulations, Annex VII, Arts 5(2) and (4))

The installation allowance is intended to enable an official who has been required to change his place of residence, in order to comply with his obligations under Article 20 of the Staff Regulations, to discharge, in addition to the removal expenses to which a specific reimbursement applies, the costs inevitably incurred in relocating to a new place of employment for a substantial period.

It is in accordance with that logic that the first sentence of Article 5(4) of the Staff Regulations, read together with paragraph 2 of that article, provides that an official who is entitled to the household allowance can only claim payment of half of the allowance to which he would normally be entitled, which is to say payment of one month’s basic salary, if he does not settle with his family in his new place of employment or does not resettle with his family in the event that he is transferred to the place of employment where his family has continued to reside. The situation of such an official, with regard to the purpose of the installation allowance, is comparable to that of an official who is not entitled to the household allowance, in that he does not face the additional costs of installing his family in the place to which he is transferred. To the same effect, the last sentence of Article 5(4) of Annex VII of the Staff Regulations, excluding the benefit of the installation allowance, will apply in circumstances where an official who is entitled to the household allowance is posted or transferred to the place where his family already resides and settles with them, because he will not have incurred installation costs.

On the other hand, the same does not apply to an official entitled to the household allowance who does not settle or resettle with his family when he is transferred, even where his family resides in his new place of employment. In such a situation, the person concerned is liable to bear additional costs relating to his actual relocation to another address than that at which his family resides and may, in those circumstances, claim payment of the installation allowance, equal to one month’s basic salary.

Consequently, the words ‘transferred to the place where his family resides’ in the last sentence of Article 5(4) of Annex VII of the Staff Regulations are to be interpreted as envisaging the situation where the official settles or resettles with his family at his place of employment.

(see paras 33-37)

See:

Judgment of 9 November 1978 in Verhaaf v Commission, 140/77, EU:C:1978:197, paragraph 18

Judgment of 29 September 2005 in Thommes v Commission, T 195/03, EU:T:2005:344, paragraph 100