Case F-109/06: Action brought on 15 September 2006 — Dittert v Commission
Date: 2006-11-18
Institutions: Civil Service Tribunal
Subjects: European Commission, European official, action by staff, promotion, staff assessment

18.11.2006

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 281/47

— alternatively, deliver a decision whereby the European
Parliament is obliged to take into account the change in the
family status of the applicant (his marriage) in accordance
with the principle of proportionality and provide him the
full amount on installation allowance (for married officials)
for the parts of the installation allowance paid after his
marriage in August 2005;

— order the defendant to pay default interest;

Action brought on 15 September 2006 — Dittert v
Commission

(Case F-109/06)

(2006/C 281/84)

Language of the case: French

— order the defendant to pay the costs.

Parties

Pleas in law and main arguments

Defendant: Commission of the European Communities

Applicant: Daniel Dittert
sented by: B. Cortese and C. Cortese, lawyers)

(Luxembourg, Luxembourg)

(repre-

From the time of his recruitment in Slovenia by the European
Parliament in September 2003, and prior, the applicant had a
stable non-marital relationship with his girl-friend, who became
his wife in August 2005. The applicant alleges that this rela-
tionship would be legally recognised by Slovenian law.

At the beginning of his employment at the European Parlia-
ment, the applicant asked for a household allowance, which
was refused on the ground that such an allowance was reserved
for married couples and same-sex non-marital relationships in
accordance with Article 1 of Annex VII of the Staff Regulations.
In May 2005 he applied for an installation allowance, which is
equal to two months' basic salary in the case of an official who
to one
is entitled to the household allowance, and equal
month's basic salary in other cases. He was granted the first
part of the installation allowance (which is paid in three parts,
one part per year) provided for singles. After his marriage, he
applied for the part of the installation allowance that is granted
to married staff but he was denied on the grounds the change
in his family status war posterior to the end of his probationary
period.

In support of his action, the applicant relies mainly on the
following pleas in law:

— first, invalidity of Article 1 (2) (c) and 1 (2) (d) of Annex VII
of the Staff Regulations and alternatively wrong interpreta-
tion of those articles by the defendant's administration due
to infringements of basic Community concepts such as free
movements of workers, citizenship of the European Union
and free movement of persons, prohibition of discrimina-
tion and unequal
treatment, and non-respect of basic
human rights and of principle of proportionality;

— Secondly, wrong interpretation of the date of the end of the
probationary period as an absolute definitive date for the
installation allowance although the payments themselves
are being carried out in a three years period.

Form of order sought

— annul the decision of the Appointing Authority to award a
number of priority points to the applicant which was insuf-
to allow his promotion in the 2005 promotion
ficient
procedure and not
to promote him in that promotion
procedure, as confirmed by the decision of 6 June 2006,
rejecting the applicant's complaint No R/73/06

— order the defendant to pay the costs

Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of his application, the applicant puts forward a
single plea: the contested decision is tainted by serious defects
resulting from a procedural irregularity and from an infringe-
ment of the principle of good administration and of the duty to
have regard for the welfare of officials.

Following a technical problem, which remains unexplained, the
applicant's file was not taken into account by his Directorate-
General when it was allocating priority points in the 2005
promotion procedure. This failure to take the applicant into
account constitutes a procedural flaw and an infringement of
the principle of good administration and of the duty to have
regard for the welfare of officials.

Those irregularities were such as to invalidate the 2005 promo-
tion procedure in so far as it concerned the applicant, and to
harm the applicant's interests, since he was allocated fewer
priority points than his own superiors (in this case,
the
Director-General of DG Competition) wished to give him, once
the technical problem had been detected. In effect, according to
the applicant, DG Competition assured him that, absent the
technical problem, it would have allocated to him a sufficient
number of points to ensure his promotion to grade AD9,
namely 7 points; the DG also expressly asked the A* Promotion
Committee to remedy the applicant's situation by allocating
that number of points to him. Notwithstanding this, the A*
Promotion Committee proposed the allocation of only 4
‘points awarded on appeal’ to the applicant, and the Appointing
Authority followed this advice, with the result that the appli-
cant was allocated an insufficient number of points to allow his
promotion to grade AD9 in the 2005 exercise.

C 281/48

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

18.11.2006

The applicant claims that, rather than the remedying of the
situation created by the technical problem, the intervention of
the A* Promotion Committee and of the Appointing Authority
themselves gave rise to procedural irregularities. Thus the A*
Promotion Committee exceeded its authority and its powers in
proposing to allocate a lower number of points to the applicant
than had been proposed by his superiors, once the technical
problem had been discovered. Furthermore, both the A*
Promotion Committee and the Appointing Authority failed to
undertake a real consideration of the applicant's comparative
merits.

Action brought on 25 September 2006 — Giannopoulos v
Council

(Case F-111/06)

(2006/C 281/86)

Language of the case: French

Action brought on 15 September 2006 — Carpi Badía v
Commission

(Case F-110/06)

(2006/C 281/85)

Language of the case: French

Parties

Applicant: José María Carpi Badía (Luxembourg, Luxembourg)
(represented by: B. Cortese and C. Cortese, lawyers)

Defendant: Commission of the European Communities

Form of order sought

— annul the decision of the Appointing Authority to allocate
to the applicant an insufficient number of priority points to
allow his promotion in the 2005 promotion procedure and
to promote him in that promotion procedure, as
not
confirmed by the Decision of 6 June 2006, rejecting the
applicant's complaint No R/74/06;

Parties

Applicant: Nikos Giannopoulos (Wezembeek-Oppem, Belgium)
(represented by: S. Rodrigues and C. Bernard-Glanz, lawyers)

Defendant: Council of the European Union

Form of order sought

— annul the applicant's classification decision as stated in the
establishment decision of 18 November 2003 in that it
awards him grade A7;

— annul,

in so far as necessary, the appointing authority's

decision rejecting the applicant's complaint;

— indicate to the appointing authority the effects of the annul-
ment of the contested decisions, and in particular: (i) the
applicant is to be reclassified in grade A6, in order to take
account of the exceptional nature of his qualifications and
the specific needs of the service, with retroactive effect to
18 November 2003; (ii) the applicant is to be reclassified in
a step which takes account of his professional experience
and is, at least, equivalent to that granted to him on the
date of his recruitment; (iii) the applicant is to be paid the
difference between the salary corresponding to the grade
and step in which he was classified and that corresponding
to the grade and step in which he ought to have been clas-
sified, plus default interest at the statutory rate from the
date on which the amount in question became payable;

— order the defendant to pay the costs.

— order the defendant to pay the costs

Pleas in law and main arguments

Pleas in law and main arguments

The pleas in law and main arguments relied on in this case are
almost identical to those relied on in Case F-109/06, the notice
concerning which is published in this issue of
the Official
Journal of the European Union.

The applicant, a successful candidate in open competition EUR/
A/127 (1) for the constitution of a reserve for the future recruit-
ment of administrators A7/A6, was recruited by the General
Secretariat of the Council and classified in grade A7. Having
learnt in July 2005 that other successful candidates in competi-
tions for grades A7/A6 had been recruited by the General
Secretariat in grade A6, or reclassified in that grade following
an internal administrative review of the initial classification
decisions, the applicant submitted a request for reclassification.
That request was rejected by the administration, as was the
complaint which he subsequently submitted.