Case F-89/06: Action brought on 11 August 2006 — Michel Nolin v Commission of the European Communities
Date: 2006-09-30
Institutions: Civil Service Tribunal
Subjects: European Commission, European official, action by staff, equal treatment, professional career, promotion, regulations for civil servants, staff assessment

C 237/20

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

30.9.2006

— order the defendant to pay the applicant, as compensation
for material damage suffered, an amount equivalent to the
sums relating to the installation allowance which will have
been recovered at the date of the judgment of the Tribunal,
increased by the interest rate in force at that date;

— order the defendant to pay the applicant the token sum of

1 euro, as compensation for pain and suffering;

— order the defendant to pay the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

The applicant arrived in Brussels in 2004 as a national expert
on secondment at the Council, and subsequently became an
official at
the same institution. The Council, after having
granted him the installation allowance, decided that he was not
entitled to it and ordered its recovery.

In support of his action, the applicant puts forward three pleas
alleging:

— first, breach of his right to the installation allowance arising
from the first subparagraph of Article 5(1) of Annexe VII to
the Staff Regulations;

— secondly, breach of the obligation to provide a statement of
reasons arising from Articles 20(2) and 90(1) of the Staff
Regulations;

— thirdly, breach of the conditions referred to in the first para-
graph of Article 85 of the Staff Regulations in so far as
they relate to recovery of the installation allowance by the
administration.

Action brought on 11 August 2006 — Michel Nolin v
Commission of the European Communities

(Case F-89/06)

(2006/C 237/35)

Language of the case: French

Parties

Applicant: Michel Nolin (Brussels, Belgium) (represented by: S.
Orlandi, A. Coolen, J.-N. Louis and E. Marchal, lawyers)

Defendant: Commission of the European Communities

Form of order sought

— annul the decision and the formal intention of the Director-
General of the Legal Service, based respectively on Article
13(3) and Article 5(7) of the General Provisions for Imple-
menting Article 45 of the Staff Regulations, adopted by
Commission Decision of 23 December 2004 not to allocate
any Directorate-General priority points to the applicant for
the ‘promotion exercise’
‘promotion year’)
2005, as confirmed and made final by the decision of the

(hereinafter

Director-General of Personnel and Administration,
taken
pursuant to Article 10(2) of the General Provisions for
Implementing Article 45 of
the Staff Regulations, and
rejecting the internal appeal filed on 26 September 2005;

taken pursuant

— annul the decision of the Director-General of Personnel and
Administration,
the
General Provisions for Implementing Article 45 of the Staff
Regulations not to allocate to the applicant any special
priority points in recognition of work undertaken in the
interest of the institution, for the promotion year 2005;

to Article 10(2) of

— annul the list of officials to whom priority points in recog-
nition of work undertaken in the interest of the institution
were awarded, the merit list of officials of grade A*12 in
the 2005 promotion year, and the list of officials promoted
to grade A*13 in that year;

— order the defendant to pay the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of his application, the applicant first points out that
in applying the General Provisions for Implementing Article 45
of the Staff Regulations in the 2005 promotion exercise the
Commission infringed the principles of
legal certainty and
protection of legitimate expectations, to the extent that those
provisions were adopted at the end of December 2004.

Furthermore, the applicant submits that the decision not to
allocate to him any Directorate-General priority points, when
he had obtained the highest mark of any official in his grade
for the period from July 2001 to
and in his department
December 2003, infringes Article 45 of the Staff Regulations,
and the General Provisions for Implementing that Article,
which require merit
to be the determining factor for the
awarding of such points, and constitutes a manifest error of
assessment. Moreover, the applicant states that, to the extent
that the Directorate-General priority points were not allocated
on the basis of merit, the Commission has misused its powers.

Next, the applicant claims that the decision not to allocate to
him any priority points in recognition of work undertaken in
the interest of the institution is illegal, in light of the fact that
his application for membership of the selection board was
successful. There was therefore an infringement of Article 5 of
the Staff Regulations and of the principle of equal treatment.

Finally, according to the applicant, the lists cited in the third
indent (above) must also be annulled,
first, because of the
defects of the contested decisions, and, second, because of the
illegality of certain articles of the General Provisions for Imple-
menting Article 45 of the Staff Regulations. The applicant
states that:

— by providing for the awarding of priority points in recogni-
tion of work undertaken in the interest of the institution
for certain supplementary tasks which are already taken
into account during the marking and awarding of Directo-
rate-General priority points, Article 9 of the General Provi-
sions for Implementing Article 45 of the Staff Regulations
infringes Article 45 of those Regulations as well as the prin-
ciple that officials should have reasonable career prospects,
and the principle of equal treatment;

30.9.2006

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 237/21

— in providing for the award of transitional priority points
based only on seniority within a grade during the 2005
promotion year, Article 13(3) of
the Rules for Imple-
menting Article 45 infringes Article 9 of the Staff Regula-
tions;

that have fewer

— in providing for more favourable treatment for officials of
Directorates-General or
staff,
services
including the staff of the Private Offices of Members of the
Commission, Article 6(2) of
the General Provisions for
Implementing Article 45 of the Staff Regulations infringes
Article 45 of those Regulations as well as the principle that
officials should have reasonable career prospects, and the
principle of equal treatment.

Action brought on 11 August 2006 — Magdalena Antas v
Council of the European Union

(Case F-92/06)

(2006/C 237/37)

Language of the case: French

Parties

Applicant: Magdalena Antas (Warsaw, Poland) (represented by:
S. Orlandi, A. Coolen, J.-N. Louis and E. Marchal, lawyers)

Action brought 11 August 2006 — Nolin v Commission

Defendant: Council of the European Union

(Case F-91/06)

(2006/C 237/36)

Language of the case: French

Parties

Applicant: Michel Nolin (Brussels, Belgium) (represented by: S.
Orlandi, A. Coolen, J.-N. Louis and E. Marchal, lawyers)

Defendant: Commission of the European Communities

Form of order sought

— annul the Council's decision rejecting the applicant's claim
for damages for suffering caused by the successive errors
made by the institution;

— fix a time-limit for the parties so as to allow them to agree
level of compensation for the damage

on the correct
suffered by the applicant;

— order the defendant to pay the costs.

Form of order sought

Pleas in law and main arguments

The applicant claims that the Court should:

— annul

the appeal assessor's decision, of 8 April 2006,
setting out the applicant's Career Progress Report (CPR) for
the 2005 assessment exercise;

— order the defendant to pay the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of his action, the applicant claims that the defendant
erred in law, in as far as some essential tasks and points relating
to his work were not mentioned by the assessor and no
comments on those tasks are made in his CPR. That situation is
due to serious inconsistencies and inadequacies comparable to
manifest errors of fact in the consideration of the factors rele-
vant to his assessment.

Furthermore,
the applicant considers that, despite the two
changes made by the assessor in his comments as compared
with the 2003 reference exercise, the applicant's report from
the previous year was repeated, in breach of Article 5 of the
general provisions implementing Article 43 of the Staff Regula-
tions, whilst significant changes in the applicant's functions had
taken place and the repetition of the previous year's report had
taken place without the applicant's consent.

employment. Subsequently,

The applicant took up her duties as a member of the auxiliary
staff in the General Secretariat of the Council on 1 November
2003 and her contract ended on 31 March 2005. From 1
January 2005, the Council automatically affiliated her to the
compulsory Belgian social security scheme for the last three
months of her
the Council
informed the applicant of her affiliation to the abovementioned
scheme with retroactive effect, dated back to the day on which
she took up her duties. However, according to the applicant, as
a result of the lateness of her affiliation, she was unable to
meet the conditions for receiving Belgian unemployment bene-
fits, as laid down in the Belgian Royal Decree of 25 November
1991 on the regulation of unemployment (1). She was therefore
unable to prove that she had sufficient means to be granted a
residence permit that would allow her to remain in Belgium for
more than three months, in accordance with Article 7 of Direc-
tive 2004/38/EC (2). Furthermore, the lateness of the affiliation
deprived her of the right that she would have enjoyed under
Annex XII of the Treaty of Accession of Poland to the Euro-
pean Union of access to the Belgian labour market.

In support of her application, the applicant pleads first of all
infringement of Article 70 of the Conditions of Employment of
other servants of the European Communities, which lays down
to a
the institution's obligation to affiliate auxiliary staff
compulsory social security scheme and to take responsibility
for the employer's contributions required under the legislation
in force.