CELEX: 62021TN0246
Language: en
Date: 2021-05-03 00:00:00
Title: Case T-246/21: Action brought on 3 May 2021 — FJ and Others v EEAS

21.6.2021   
            
            
               EN
            
            
               Official Journal of the European Union
            
            
               C 242/56
            
         
      Action brought on 3 May 2021 — FJ and Others v EEAS
      (Case T-246/21)
      (2021/C 242/79)
      Language of the case: French
      
         Parties
      
      
         Applicants: FJ and six other applicants (represented by: J.-N. Louis, lawyer)
      
         Defendant: European External Action Service
      
         Form of order sought
      
      The applicants claim that the Court should:
      
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                  annul the Commission’s decision establishing the applicants’ pay slip for the month of July 2020 in so far as it applies, for the first time, the new correction coefficients applicable to their salary, with retroactive effect from 1 October 2019 and 1 January 2020;
               
            
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                  order the defendant to pay the costs.
               
            
         Pleas in law and main arguments
      
      In support of their action, the applicants allege infringement of Articles 64 and 65 of the Staff Regulations and of the principle of equal treatment in terms of equivalence of purchasing power, manifest error of assessment and infringement of the principle of legal certainty and of the duty of care.
      In order to set the correction coefficient applicable to the salary of the applicants who are posted outside the European Union, Eurostat should collect data specific to their place of employment, in accordance with the rules for the application of Articles 64 and 65 of the Staff Regulations, set out in Annex XI thereto. The collection of the data used to set the correction coefficient is carried out under an international cooperation agreement between Eurostat, the OECD and the UN.
      The coefficients set on the basis of those data fell from January 2018 to January 2019 from 239,7 to 94,0 whereas, for that same period, the coefficients applied to the salaries of UN personnel were increased to take account of inflation.
      In 2017, the Congolese franc (CDF) underwent a sharp devaluation as against the dollar (USD) and the euro, which, coupled with substantial inflation, resulted in a significant increase in prices in USD, according to the analysis of the IMF. Furthermore, the statistical data of both the Central Bank of Congo and the UN and the IMF, show a parallel trend of the USD and the CDF in relation to the euro.