JUDGMENT OF THE EUROPEAN UNION CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL
(First Chamber)

25 September 2012

Case F‑51/10

Moises Bermejo Garde

v

European Economic and Social Committee (EESC)

(Civil service — Officials — Recruitment — Notice of vacancy — Act adversely affecting an official — Interest in bringing proceedings — Language requirements — Authority competent to adopt a vacancy notice — Bureau of the EESC)

Application: brought under Article 270 TFEU, applicable to the EAEC Treaty by virtue of Article 106a thereof, in which Mr Bermejo Garde seeks annulment of a vacancy notice published by the EESC.

Held: The vacancy notice is annulled. The action is dismissed as to the remainder. The EESC is to bear its own costs and those incurred by the applicant.

Summary

1.      Actions brought by officials — Act adversely affecting an official — Vacancy notice — Conditions excluding officials eligible for transfer or promotion — Admissibility

(Staff Regulations, Arts 29, 90 and 91)

2.      Actions for annulment — Interest in bringing proceedings — Action seeking to avoid recurrence in the future of unlawfulness in an act of an EU institution — Admissibility

(Art. 263 TFEU)

3.      Officials — Vacancy notice — Adoption of a new vacancy notice containing significant differences as compared with the first vacancy notice — Competent authority

(Staff Regulations, Art. 29)

1.      Where an official is eligible to fill, by transfer or promotion, a post referred to in a vacancy notice, that notice constitutes an act adversely affecting that official if the conditions it lays down have the effect of excluding his candidature.

(see para. 36)

See:

19 June 1975, 79/74 Küster v Parliament, para. 6; 11 May 1978, 25/77 De Roubaix v Commission, para. 8

18 May 2006, F‑13/05 Corvoisier and Others v ECB, para. 42; 9 July 2009, F‑91/07 Torijano Montero v Council, para. 27

2.      An applicant may retain an interest in seeking the annulment of an act of an EU institution in order to prevent its alleged unlawfulness recurring in the future.

(see para. 50)

See:

7 June 2007, C‑362/05 P Wunenburger v Commission, para. 50 et seq

3.      Under Rule 72(1), second indent, of the Rules of Procedure of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), the powers which the Staff Regulations confer on the appointing authority are to be exercised, with respect to officials in grades 16, 15 and 14 of function group AD, by the Bureau of the EESC as regards application, inter alia, of Article 29 of the Staff Regulations.

Accordingly, a new vacancy notice to fill the post of Director of the Directorate for General Affairs of the EESC, according to the procedure laid down in Article 29(1) and (2) of the Staff Regulations, at grade AD 14, which was significantly different from the first vacancy notice as regards the necessary qualifications, requires a new decision of the Bureau, in pursuance of Rule 72 of the Rules of Procedure.

In those circumstances, by signing such a new vacancy notice without the Bureau having first adopted a new decision to that end, the President of the EESC exceeded his powers, thus entailing annulment of the new vacancy notice.

(see paras 60-61, 65, 68-71)