JUDGMENT OF THE CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL (Third Chamber)

4 May 2010

Case F-100/08

Alessandro Petrilli

v

European Commission

(Civil service — Officials — Pensions — Concept of residence — Principal residence — Documents in support)

Application: brought under Articles 236 EC and 152 EA, in which Mr Petrilli seeks, in particular, annulment of the appointing authority’s decision of 16 September 2008 rejecting his complaint lodged on the basis of Article 90(2) of the Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Union against the decision of the Office for the Administration and Payment of Individual Entitlements of 18 April 2008 refusing to fix Italy as his main place of residence and to apply the weighting for Italy to his pension.

Held: The action is dismissed. The applicant is to pay all the costs.

Summary

Officials — Pensions — Weighting

(Staff Regulations, Art. 82)

The concept of residence within the meaning of Article 82 of the version of the Staff Regulations in force until 30 April 2004, which provides for the application to pensions of the weighting fixed for the country in which the recipient proves he has established his residence, refers to the place where the former official has actually established his centre of interests, in other words the place in which the person concerned has established, with the intention that it should be of a lasting character, the permanent or habitual centre of his interests and where he is deemed to incur his expenditure. Furthermore, irrespective of the purely quantitative element of the time spent by the person in a particular country, residence implies not only the actual fact of living in a given place, but also the intention of thereby achieving the continuity which stems from a stable way of life and from the course of normal social relations. This concept of residence is peculiar to the Community civil service and does not necessarily coincide with national meanings of the term.

(see para. 32)

See:

T‑124/01 and T‑320/01 Del Vaglio v Commission [2003] ECR-SC I‑A‑157 and II‑767, para. 70 and the case-law cited therein, and paras 71 and 72; judgment of 12 September 2005 in T‑320/04 Dionyssopoulou v Council, not published in the ECR, para. 39; T-416/04 Kontouli v Council [2006] ECR-SC I‑A‑2‑181 and II‑A‑2‑897, para. 71

F‑134/06 Bordini v Commission [2008] ECR‑SC I‑A‑1‑87 and II‑A‑1‑435