JUDGMENT OF THE CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL (First Chamber)

14 December 2010

Case F-74/09

Werner Siegfried Gowitzke

v

European Police Office (Europol)

(Civil service — Europol staff — Article 27 of the Staff Regulations applicable to Europol employees — Article 4 of the policy for determining the grades and steps of Europol staff — Reassessment of a post to the next grade — Classification in step)

Application: brought under Article 40(3) of the Convention based on Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union, on the establishment of a European Police Office (Europol Convention), and Article 93(1) of the Staff Regulations applicable to Europol employees, in which Mr Gowitzke seeks, in particular, annulment of the addendum to his contract of employment, drawn up by Europol on 16 February 2009, reassessing his post from grade 6 to grade 5 and fixing his initial salary level at step 1 in that grade.

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

Summary

Officials — Europol staff — Reassessment of a post to the next grade — Classification in step

Neither Article 27 of the Staff Regulations applicable to Europol employees nor the document entitled ‘Policy for determining the grades and steps of Europol staff’ adopted on 26 August 2008 by the Director of Europol (‘policy on steps’) lays down the grade or step to be granted when a post is reassessed.

It is the provision governing the situation most closely comparable to the case in question which must be applied by analogy, namely the first paragraph of Article 4(2) of the policy on steps. While it is true that that provision determines the steps to be allocated to internal candidates who, as a result of an internal selection procedure, are appointed to a different post at a higher grade, the provision is also applicable in cases where the new grade allocated to the staff member concerned is not connected with his success in an internal selection procedure, at the end of which he would have been asked to occupy a different post, but with the reassessment to a higher grade of the post he already occupies.

According to that provision, an internal candidate appointed to a post at a higher grade receives the step in that grade immediately above his previous basic salary. It is, admittedly, apparent from a literal interpretation of the provision that ‘in that grade’ refers to the new grade. However, in order to provide greater clarity, it is specified in that provision that a comparison should be made with the previous basic salary of the staff member concerned. Consequently, in order to determine the step to be allocated, the previous basic salary must be compared with the basic salaries in the higher grade, and the step to be allocated must be that which, while still the lowest, gives the staff member a basic salary higher than the one he earned in his previous grade. In order to prevent a staff member from suffering a loss of basic salary when he is allocated a higher grade, therefore, it is not automatically the first step of the higher grade that is granted, but the first out of all the steps in the grade concerned which gives him a basic salary higher than the one he earned in his former grade.

(see paras 31, 32, 34, 36)