4.

I shall move on to the criticisms which directly affect the measure by which the selection board excluded the applicant from taking part in the tests. Mr Szemerey maintains that that measure does not contain a sufficiently clear statement of the reasons upon which it is based and is therefore in breach of the second paragraph of Article 25 of the Staff Regulations which provides that all decisions relating to a specific individual adversely affecting officials must state the grounds on which they are based. The decision not to admit the applicant to the competition tests was notified to Mr Szemerey by means of a standard letter containing a list of four grounds and bearing a cross in the box against ground No 2 (‘Your qualifications were not considered adequate’, corresponding to the Italian formula ‘I vostri titoli o diplomi non sono stati giudicati conformi ai requisiti richiesti’). Such a statement of the grounds upon which the decision was based did not, in the applicant's opinion, because of its general nature show that the reason why the qualifications were not in accordance with the requirements contained in the notice was that the applicant did not possess a university degree; this jeopardized Mr Szemerey's possibilities of defence both at the administrative and at the judicial level. The attitude of this Court to the question expressed most recently in the judgments of 30 November 1978 (Joined Cases 4, 19 and 28/78, Enrico M. Salerno, Xavier Authié and Giuseppe Massangioli v Commission of the European Communities) and the judgment of 5 April 1979 (Case 112/78, Kobor v Commission) is that when a condition for admission represents in fact the sum of several requirements, it is not sufficient for the measure stating that the applicant is not admitted to the tests to refer to the conditions as a whole for the purpose of indicating which precisely of the necessary condition was considered in each case to be lacking (see paragraph 15 of the decision in the judgment in the Kobor case). The consequence of this premise a contrario is that if the condition for admission corresponds to a single and easily identifiable fact, a statement of the reasons upon which the measure not admitting the applicant is based consisting merely of a reference to the condition itself without further details must be considered as sufficient and therefore in accordance with the provisions laid down in the second paragraph of Article 25 of the Staff Regulations. In fact, in such a case, the person concerned is able to understand clearly which deficiency was found by the selection board and has therefore the opportunity to put forward, if he thinks fit, an appropriate defence. In the present case precisely the latter situation has occurred. It is an uncontested fact that the applicant does not have a university degree or diploma; this emerges from the application to take part in the competition itself, under heading 12 (‘Diplomas or degrees obtained and class of degree’), which, significantly, did not bear any information (see document No 4 annexed to the application), as well as from the candidate's curriculum vitae. The fact that the notice of competition required in relation to the heading ‘Certificates, diplomas, etc.’ a university degree (‘University education, with degree or diploma’) in a field appropriate to the option chosen (in this instance, information) is likewise incontestable. The requirement of practical experience was indicated in a separate paragraph. In the standard letter sent to the candidate to inform him that he had not been admitted to the tests, experience also appeared in a number beside a box different from those relating to qualifications. The risk of uncertainty was therefore excluded in this instance in view of the phrase pointed out in the above-mentioned standard letter: the lacuna ascertained by the selection board could consist only in the lack of the university degree (or other diploma) which constituted the first of the two special conditions required by the notice for the purpose of admission to the tests and the only condition which could be defined by the term ‘qualifications’. Uncertainty might hypothetically have arisen if the applicant had possessed a university degree or diploma but this was not considered relevant to the chosen field or not classifiable as a degree or diploma, taking into account all the same the special features of the education system in the United Kingdom. However, the case with which we are dealing did not have those special features: the uncontested lack of any university degree or diploma could not give rise to misunderstandings. Owing to these considerations, I take the view that the statement of the reasons upon which the measure excluding Mr Szemerey from the tests was based was clear and sufficient and therefore in accordance with the provisions laid down in Article 25 of the Staff Regulations. This ground of appeal must therefore also be held to be unfounded.