Action brought on 14 March 2013 - Kingdom of Spain v Commission

(Case T-148/13)

Language of the case: Spanish

Parties

Applicant: Kingdom of Spain (represented by: S. Centeno Huerta)

Defendant: European Commission

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the Court should:

annul notice of open competition EPSO/AST/125/12 - Assistants (AST 3), and

order the Commission to pay the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

Pursuant to Article 263 TFEU, the Kingdom of Spain seeks the annulment of the notice of open competition referred to above for infringement of Article 22 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, Article 342 TFEU, Articles 1 and 6 of Regulation No 1 determining the languages to be used by the European Economic Community (OJ, English Special Edition 1952-1958, p. 59), Articles 1d and 27 of the Staff Regulations and the case-law in Case C-566/10 P Italy v Commission.

In support of the action, the Kingdom of Spain claims that the notice of competition in respect of which annulment is sought:

discriminates against candidates whose first language is not English, French or German;

does not justify objectively and in a concrete manner the limitation of the number of languages in the light of the positions to which the notice relates; the mere general statement relating to 'the interests of the service' is not sufficient in that regard;

it is not in line with the objective of selecting candidates with the highest standard of ability, efficiency and integrity;

infringes the principle of proportionality, in that it does not ensure a balance between the efficiency of the service and the principle of guaranteeing multilingualism in the European Union.

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