Notice for the OJ

 

Action brought on 1 October 2002 by Anna Romero Romeu against the Commission of the European Communities

    (Case T-298/02)

    Language of the case: Spanish

An action against the Commission of the European Communities was brought before the Court of First Instance of the European Communities on 1 October 2002 by Anna Romero Romeu, residing in Brussels, represented by Ramón García-Gallardo Gil-Fournier and Javier Guillem-Carrau, lawyers.

The applicant claims that the Court should:

(annul the decision of the appointing authority of 10 June 2002 in so far as it does not recognise the applicant's entitlement to the expatriate allowance and, consequently, her entitlement to the other associated allowances in accordance with the decision in Lozano;

(order the defendant to pay all the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments:

By the present action, the applicant, an official of the defendant institution, is contesting the appointing authority's decision refusing to recognise her entitlement to the expatriation allowance (Article 4 of Annex VII to the Staff Regulations); in the applicant's view, that allowance is due to her inasmuch as her habitual residence and centre of interests during the relevant period under the Staff Regulations was Barcelona and not Brussels.

In support of her claims, the applicant pleads:

(commission of a manifest error of assessment of the facts, inasmuch as, first, the contested decision did not treat the work done for the representative office of a Spanish Autonomous Community in Brussels as "work done for another State" and, second, it failed to take account of the applicant's personal situation as regards lasting links with the country of employment;

(infringement of the principle of non-discrimination, inasmuch as the case involves a difference in treatment between personal situations which are substantially the same, since no account has been taken, for the purposes of calculating the reference period, of the periods of work completed, prior to their engagement, by certain officials employed in Brussels in offices of German Länder or of United Kingdom federations.

The applicant also pleads failure to comply with the obligation to provide a statement of reasons.

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