Action brought on 28 May 2009 - Italy v Commission and EPSO
(Case T-218/09)
Language of the case: Italian
Parties
Applicant: Italian Republic (represented by: P. Gentili, avvocato dello Stato)
Defendants: Commission of the European Communities and European Personnel Selection Office (EPSO)
Form of order sought
Annul the notice of admission tests and notice of open competition EPSO/AST/91/09 to form a reserve list for the recruitment of assistants (AST 3) in the offset printing field;
annul the notice of admission tests and notice of open competition EPSO/AST/92/09 to form a reserve list for the recruitment of assistants (AST 3) in the pre-press field.
Pleas in law and main arguments
The applicant challenges the notices of open competition referred to above in so far as some of the tests that are required to be taken must necessarily be taken in German, English of French.
In support of its challenge, the Italian Republic relies on forward the following grounds:
infringement of Article 290 EC, which confers exclusive competence on the Council, acting unanimously, to determine the rules governing the languages of Community acts. The applicant submits in that connection that in the case at issue EPSO effectively assumed the role of the Council in determining the rules governing the languages of the two competitions by requiring that, as a second language and as the language in which the admission tests, two out of three of the written tests and the oral tests were to be taken, the candidates were obliged to choose between English, French and German, all the other languages of the Member States being excluded;
infringement of Article 12 EC, Article 22 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, Articles 1 and 6 of Regulation No 1/58
1 and Article 28 of the Staff Regulations. It is submitted in this regard that all the national languages of the Member States have the status of official languages and working languages of European Union. A notice of open competition cannot therefore arbitrarily limit to just three the languages which candidates may choose from as a second language and as the language in which correspondence and the competition tests will be conducted. Moreover, Article 28 of the Staff Regulations requires candidates to have knowledge of a second Community language in addition to their own national language and does not confer any special status on English, French or German.
Finally, the applicant pleads infringement of Article 253 EC and of the principle of the protection of legitimate expectation.
____________1 - Regulation No 1determining the languages to be used by the European Economic Community (OJ English Special Edition, 1952-1958, p. 59)