ORDER OF THE CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL

(Third Chamber)

29 March 2007

Case F-39/06

Olivier Chassagne

v

Commission of the European Communities

(Officials – Pay – Annual travel expenses – Provisions applicable to officials originating from French overseas departments – Article 8 of Annex VII to the amended Staff Regulations – Application manifestly unfounded in law)

Application: brought under Articles 236 EC and 152 EA, in which Mr Chassagne seeks, first, annulment of the Commission’s decision rejecting his complaint of 23 September 2005 against his payslip for July 2005 and, essentially, annulment of that payslip, and, secondly, compensation for the non-pecuniary and financial damage sustained.

Held: The action is dismissed. Each party is ordered to bear its own costs.

Summary

1.      Officials – Staff Regulations – Amendment

(Staff Regulations; Council Regulation 723/2004)

2.      Officials – Actions – Action concerning the question of reimbursement of an official’s annual travel expenses

(Arts 241 EC and 299(2) and (3) EC; Staff Regulations, Art. 91; Annex VII, Art. 8)

1.      The adoption of a Community regulation amending the Staff Regulations could not be invalidated by the fact that a consolidated version of the provisions governing the situation of officials of the European institutions was not published. The validity of a regulation depends on its proper publication in the Official Journal of the European Union, a formal requirement that has been met both for the original regulation laying down the Staff Regulations and for the regulations which have amended it subsequently, including, most recently, Regulation No 723/2004. In any event, the consolidated version of the Staff Regulations is accessible on the Commission’s intranet site, and a printed version is usually handed to each official upon taking up his post. Moreover, there is no rule of law which makes it compulsory to publish the consolidated texts of the Staff Regulations or studies on the effects of a future reform of the Staff Regulations, or which lays down the procedure for publishing information intended for the staff, nor is there any provision which makes the validity of rules of the Staff Regulations dependent on such publication. The same conclusion applies concerning an alleged lack of information for citizens of the European Union about the consolidated version of the amended Staff Regulations. The legality of the amended Staff Regulations, taken as a whole, cannot therefore be called into question on the ground of infringement of the principles of transparency, democracy and legal certainty.

(see paras 22-25)

See:

T-100/92 La Pietra v Commission [1994] ECR-SC I‑A‑83 and II‑275, para. 45

F-43/05 Chassagne v Commission [2007] ECR-SC I-A-1-0000 and II-A-1-0000, paras 109 and 110

2.      In a dispute concerning the question of the reimbursement of the annual travel expenses of an official of the European Communities, the applicant is not justified in pleading the unlawfulness of a regulation concerning the European civil service on the ground that that regulation does not contain special rules for the territories referred to in Article 299(2) and (3) EC, since the question of that reimbursement is outside the legislative scope of those provisions of the Treaty.

(see para. 27)