1.

The applicant asserts first of all that Notice of Competition COM 152/70 disregarded the provisions of Article 1(1) (g) of Annex III to the Staff Regulations of Officials. This is so, he argues, because the notice failed to mention amongst the conditions to be fulfilled by the applicants ‘the age-limit and any extension of the age-limit in the case of servants of the Communities who have completed not less than one year's service’. The applicant considers that it is essential to give these particulars since they are intended to ensure that in internal competitions younger servants are favourably placed. It must be conceded that this assertion does indeed obtain a certain degree of support from the categoric terms of Article 1(1) of Annex III which provide that ‘Notices of competitions must specify…’. It may further be claimed that only in two cases, referred to in subparagraphs (f) and (i), are exceptions expressly provided for and this by the use of the words ‘where appropriate’ and ‘any’. The applicant deduces from this an argument, by the process of reasoning to the converse, in support of the other conditions quoted. Nevertheless the opposite view maintained by the Commission must ultimately be advocated as the more logical and therefore the correct one. The objective of the provisions relating to the holding of competitions is to ensure the greatest possible objectivity in the proceedings. Accordingly only criteria which have been laid down in advance for general application are valid. It is however quite clear that there may be posts which, by the nature of the duties involved, render the age of persons occupying them of no significance at all. In such cases provision of an age-limit in the notice of competition is undoubtedly pointless. If in accordance with the wording of Annex III the appointing authority were obliged to lay down such a limit, this would mean that in certain circumstances at any rate the limits would be drawn extraordinarily wide, possibly to the legal maximum, in order to take all possible applications into consideration. This could scarcely be objected to for the principle can nowhere be deduced from the Staff Regulations that younger candidates are to be given priority in competitions. There must be this further objection to the view of the applicant that in principle a low age-limit has to be set: it would have unfortunate effects on the career structure of servants of the Communities and would prevent older servants from rising in the hierarchy. Their career prospects could well be reduced in some cases by the application of the ‘extension of the age-limit in the case of servants of the Communities who have completed not less than one year's service’. This would have to be quite simply termed discrimination against such servants. It cannot seriously be accepted that this is the intention of the provisions of the Staff Regulations. Consequently it appears to me that the established practice of the Commission in not setting an age-limit in internal competitions is perfectly proper. It can a fortiori be said in such cases, that is to say, in those of applications by persons who are already in the service of the Communities, that in making the appointment (with or without a competition) care could be taken to give preference to the entry of younger persons into the service of the Communities. Finally it is impossible to oppose the view here advocated by a forceful line of argument derived from the case-law of the Court on related problems. The applicant invoked the judgment in Case 35/64 ([1965] EC R 261 at p. 267) where it was indeed stated that Article 1 of Annex III to the Staff Regulations of Officials lists the specifications which the notice of competition must include; in other words this is a reference to the mandatory terms of the said provision. However since this judgment essentially depended on factors other than the age-limit it is impossible simply to deduce from it that the Court considers that none of the conditions mentioned in Article 1 of Annex III to the Staff Regulations of Officials may be omitted from a notice of competition. To sum up I should like to express the view that despite the wording used in Article 1 of Annex HI it cannot be maintained that specification of an age-limit is obligatory and that consequently it is impossible to annul a notice of competition which refrains from setting such a limit or the decisions making the appointments on the basis thereof.