Action brought on 31 January 2006 - Larsen v Commission
(Case F-11/06)
Language of the case: French
Parties
Applicants: Holger Larsen (London, United Kingdom) and Others (represented by: S. Orlandi, A. Coolen, J.-N. Louis, E. Marchal, lawyers)
Defendant: Commission of the European Communities
Form of order sought
The applicants claim that the Court should:
Annul the decision of 2 March 2005 made by the Director of the Office for Administration and Payment of Individual Entitlements to reduce the applicant's remuneration from 1 May 2005;
Order the defendant to pay the applicant the rent allowance to which he is entitled, since the day on which it ceased to be paid to him, together with compensatory interest calculated at a rate two points above the central rate of the European Central Bank;
Order the defendant to pay the costs.
Pleas in law and main arguments
The applicant, an official assigned to the Commission Representation Office in London, received from 1 October 2002 a rent allowance under Article 14a of Annex VII to the Staff Regulations and Regulation No 6/66/Euratom and No 121/66/EEC
1. That article was repealed when the Staff Regulations were reformed and so the Commission, by decision of 2 May 2005, withdrew that allowance from the applicant.
In support of his action, the applicant first alleges the infringement of Article 62 of the Staff Regulations and Article 19 of Annex XIII thereto. He points out, in particular, that the defendant was wrong to apply the latter article in accordance with the interpretation adopted by the Heads of Administration on 14 October 2004, which excludes the rent allowance from the remuneration covered by the transitional measures laid down in that article. Such an interpretation is unlawful, inasmuch as it reduces the scope of the net income guarantee referred to by the provision in question.
In addition, the applicant contends that the contested decision infringes the principle of the equivalent purchasing power of officials, as prescribed by Articles 64 and 65 of the Staff Regulations.
____________1 - Regulation No 6/66/Euratom, 121/66/EEC of the Councils of 28 July 1966 laying down the list of places for which a rent allowance may be granted, the maximum amount of that allowance and the rules for granting it, OJ, English Special Edition 1965-6 (1), p. 212.