Action brought on 16 November 2006 - Salvador Roldán v Commission

(Case F-129/06)

Language of the case: English

Parties

Applicant: Rocío Salvador Roldán (Brussels, Belgium) (represented by: F. Tuytschaever and H. Burez, lawyers)

Defendant: Commission of the European Communities

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the Tribunal should:

annul the Decision of the Appointing Authority in response to the complaint lodged by the applicant (No R/320/06) of 18 August 2006;

order the defendant to pay the applicant the amounts corresponding to the expatriation allowance to which she is entitled, with effect from 1 April 2006, together with a default interest of 7% from the date each amount fell due until the actual date of payment;

order the defendant to pay the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

The application is based upon two pleas in law:

1) The applicant contests the Commission's conclusion according to which she does not comply with the condition provided for in the second indent of Article 4(1)(a) of Annex VII to the Staff Regulations for the payment of the expatriation allowance. The applicant claims that the contested decision incorrectly holds that she habitually resided in Belgium during the reference period. In particular, in her opinion, the provision of services by the applicant to an international law firm established in Belgium does not entail the consequence that she had established lasting ties in that Member State.

2) The applicant submits that the contested decision should be annulled because it breaches the principle of non-discrimination. First, she raises a plea of illegality of the second indent of Article 4(1)(a) of Annex VII to the Staff Regulations. She argues that this provision unduly makes a difference between, on the one hand, officials who performed, in the same Member State in which they were recruited by a European institution, duties in the service of another State or of an international organisation and, on the other hand, officials, such as the applicant, whose situations are also characterised by a lack of lasting ties with the Member State they used to work in before being recruited by a European institution. Second, the applicant claims that the Commission applied the abovementioned provision in a discriminatory manner, in so far as it did not take into account the personal circumstances of the applicant demonstrating that she had not intended to establish lasting ties in Belgium.

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