1.

With regard to his first complaint, the applicant explained in detail that the decision dismissing him stated no specific reason justifying such a step. The reference to the report at the expiry of the probationary period and the opinion of the Reports Committee meet only in the formal sense the requirement to state the reasons on which the decision was based and that cannot be sufficient for the purposes of Article 25 of the Staff Regulations. What was in fact required was for the appointing authority to reject the applicant's comments on the report prepared at the expiry of his probationary period and deal in detail with the opinion of the Reports Committee, which the applicant contends was favourable to him. (a) It must be stated first, and to that extent the applicant must accept that the principles he asserts cannot be entirely maintained, that according to the relevant caselaw, it is not an absolute rule that a measure adversely affecting an individual must itself contain all the details of the reasons on which it is based. It is recognized as being sufficient if the necessary clarity as to the reasons on which a measure is based may be deduced from all the circumstances surrounding its adoption, for example, from discussions which took place with the person concerned or from assessments made in connection with it (see, for example, the judgments in Cases 131/82, ( 1 ) 176/82 ( 2 ) and 69/83 ( 3 )). It is also clear that the body adopting the measure is not required to discuss any views of the person concerned which may differ from its own. It merely has to set out its own opinion and state the reasons of fact and law on which the opinion is based (as was decided, for example, in the judgment in Case 266/82 ( 4 )). (b) In the present case, however, it is difficult to regard the mere reference to other documents in the contested decision as satisfactory evidence that the applicant was not sufficiently qualified to be appointed as an official. It must however be admitted that the report at the expiry of the probationary period makes clear that, in the view of the applicant's superior, he did not fulfil the requirements of the post which he occupied. Of 14 criteria for assessment, he received ‘very good’ only for written and oral expression in Greek and ‘good’ only for oral expression in German and ‘human relations’, whilst he received only ‘satisfactory’ for six other criteria and even ‘insufficient’ in a further six cases. Moreover, the applicant's superior set out his shortcomings in detail under the heading ‘General Assessment’, as he had also done in his memorandum of 28 February 1983. On the other hand, we know that the applicant, who did not agree with that judgment, submitted the case, as he was entitled to do, to the committee established for the purpose of dealing with such disputes. That committee spent five days making a thorough study of the applicant's dismissal. It heard witnesses who were well acquainted with conditions in the department in which the applicant had worked. In the opinion which it issued as a result of its investigations, the committee was strongly critical of the way in which Directorate A functioned and the physical conditions under which the applicant had to work. It also found that the results in relation to quality of work and speed of execution ‘had not been established on a verifiable basis’ so that the committee was not in a position ‘correctly to assess Mr Patrinos's performance.’ It also found that, ‘with regard to sense of organization, no valid assessment has been possible’. It then came to the fundamental conclusion, with five votes in favour and one abstention ‘that it has not been established that the report at the expiry of the probationary period is well founded’. Furthermore, with regard to the applicant's superior's proposal to dismiss him, only three members of the committee were in favour and three others were opposed. They considered that in spite of certain weaknesses, it would have been possible to make a positive assessment. That being the situation of fact — and it must also be said that it is not easy to understand how three members of the committee were in favour of dismissing the applicant when the committee's basic finding appears to have been supported by five of its members, with one abstention — it is not possible merely to refer to the report at the expiry of the probationary period together with the opinion of the Reports Committee as grounds for the decision to dismiss the plaintiff and conclude that it appears from both of those documents that the applicant had not shown that he possessed the qualifications for his post. In the light of what I have just stated, that is not merely inconsistent but clearly contradictory. Since the appointing authority appears to have relied principally on the report at the expiry of the probationary period, an explanation should have been given as to how that report could be regarded as well founded regard being had to the contrary conclusion of the Reports Committee. In other words, the reasons why the criticisms made by the Reports Committee were not regarded as justified ought to have been set out or, in so far as the criticisms were accepted, it should have been made clear why, in the view of the appointing authority, there none the less remained so many negative factors that a definitive appointment was out of the question. Since that was not done, and since the decision taken as a result of the applicant's complaint provides no additional clarification, the complaint that the decision to dismiss the applicant does not contain a sufficient statement of the reasons on which it is based, and therefore infringes Article 25 of the Staff Regulations, must be regarded as justified. That is sufficient to justify annulment of the contested decision but it may also be stated that in the present case one is left with the impression that substantive criticisms are also appropriate.