ORDER OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE (Fifth Chamber)

5 March 2007

Case T-455/04

Derya Beyatli and Armagan Candan

v

Commission of the European Communities

(Officials – Open competition – Notice of competition – Time-limits – Complaint – Inadmissibility)

Application: for annulment of the decision of 5 May 2004 of the president of the selection board of open competition EPSO/A/1/03 notifying the applicants of their failure in the written tests.

Held: The action is dismissed as inadmissible. Each of the parties is to bear its own costs.

Summary

Officials – Actions – Prior administrative complaint – Definition

(Staff Regulations, Art. 90(2); Decision 2002/620 of the European Parliament, the Council, the Commission, the Court of Justice, the Court of Auditors, the Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions and the European Ombudsman, Art. 4)

A letter from a candidate who has failed the tests in an interinstitutional competition organised by the European Communities Personnel Selection Office (EPSO), addressed solely to the head of the Commission delegation in the candidate’s Member State, generally criticising the linguistic discrimination allegedly suffered by certain candidates and expressing the conviction that the European Union would take the necessary steps to resolve that problem, but without formulating any specific request concerning the selection board’s decision, cannot be regarded as a complaint within the meaning of Article 90(2) of the Staff Regulations. Such a letter, which is not specific enough for the administration to be able to understand that it has received a complaint, appears to be a political approach by the candidate to persuade the European Union to take the necessary measures to put an end to the alleged discrimination.

The fact that such a letter, which, if it were intended to be a complaint, should have been addressed to the EPSO in accordance with Article 4 of Decision 2002/620 establishing the EPSO, might have been forwarded to the EPSO by the Commission’s head of delegation is not relevant to its characterisation, which depends on its content and not on its possible forwarding, by the addressee, to other individuals or bodies.

(see paras 45-46, 48, 50, 58)

See: C‑154/99 P Politi v European Training Foundation [2000] ECR I‑509, para. 16