JUDGMENT OF THE CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL (Second Chamber)

5 July 2007

Case F-93/06

Bruno Dethomas

v

Commission of the European Communities

(Civil service – Former member of the temporary staff – Appointment as an official – Amendment of the Staff Regulations of 1 May 2004 – Third paragraph of Article 32 of the Staff Regulations – Classification in step)

Application: brought under Articles 236 EC and 152 EA, in which Mr Dethomas seeks annulment of the Commission’s decision of 11 January 2006 appointing him as a probationary official and assigning him, as Head of the European Commission Delegation to the Kingdom of Morocco, to the Directorate-General ‘External Relations’, in so far as that decision fixes his classification in grade A*14, step 2.

Held: The Commission’s decision of 11 January 2006 is annulled in so far as it classifies the applicant, Head of the European Commission Delegation to the Kingdom of Morocco, in grade A*14, step 2. The Commission is ordered to pay the costs.

Summary

Officials – Recruitment – Classification in step – Additional seniority in step

(Staff Regulations, Arts 29(2) and 32, third para.; Council Regulation No 723/2004)

In the absence of any transitional provision in Regulation No 723/2004 amending the Staff Regulations of Officials and the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants, the third paragraph of Article 32 of the Staff Regulations, the wording of which is clear and unambiguous, remains wholly applicable, after that regulation came into force, to the classification in step of any member of the temporary staff who is appointed an official in the same grade that he occupied previously. He therefore retains the seniority in step acquired in his capacity as a member of the temporary staff.

In that respect, the appointment of a staff member in active employment to a higher post pursuant to Article 29(2) of the Staff Regulations cannot be considered to be an ‘external’ recruitment preventing any account being taken of the years of service which the newly appointed official has accumulated as a member of the temporary staff.

(see paras 49, 58, 62)

See:

F-21/06 Da Silva v Commission [2007] ECR-SC I-A-1-000 and II-A-I-000, para. 75