JUDGMENT OF THE CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL

(Second Chamber)

10 September 2009

Case F-9/08

Eckehard Rosenbaum

v

Commission of the European Communities

(Civil service – Officials – Appointment – Grading – Request for reclassification – Scope of Article 13 of Annex XIII to the Staff Regulations – Account taken of professional experience – Recruitment in the grade of the competition – Article 31 of the Staff Regulations – Principle of non-discrimination – Free movement of workers)

Application: brought under Articles 236 EC and 152 EA, in which Mr Rosenbaum seeks, in particular, annulment of the Commission’s decision of 13 February 2007 classifying him in Grade AD 6, step 2.

Held: The action is dismissed. The applicant is ordered to bear his own costs and to pay those of the Commission. The Council of the European Union, intervener for the Commission, is ordered to bear its own costs.

Summary

1.      Officials – Actions – Purpose – Direction to the administration – Inadmissibility

(Art. 233 EC; Staff Regulations, Art. 91)

2.      Officials – Staff Regulations – Regulation amending the Staff Regulations – Transitional provisions towards the new career structure

(Staff Regulations, Annex XIII, Arts 12(2) and 13)

3.      Actions for annulment – Pleas in law – Invalid plea in law – Definition

1.      It is not for the Civil Service Tribunal to issue directions to a Community institution or to make statements or findings of principle, regardless of the general obligation set out in Article 233 EC that an institution which adopted an annulled act must take the necessary measures to comply with the judgment annulling that act.

(see para. 21)

See:

T-76/03 Meister v OHIM [2004] ECR-SC I‑A‑325 and II‑1477, para. 38

F-55/05 Voigt v Commission [2006] ECR-SC I‑A‑1‑15 and II‑A‑1‑51, paras 23 and 25

2.      There is no provision in Annex XIII to the Staff Regulations which provides that that annex in its entirety no longer applies after 30 April 2006. It is only the application of certain specific provisions of that annex which is limited to the period between 1 May 2004 and 30 April 2006. In the absence of any indication to that effect concerning Article 13 of Annex XIII to the Staff Regulations, that article should not be regarded as included among those specific provisions and as applicable only during that period, even taking account of Article 12(2) of that annex.

(see paras 31-32)

3.      Where a plea in law, even if well founded, is not such as to entail the annulment of the contested measure, that plea must be regarded as invalid.

(see para. 41)

See:

C-46/98 P EFMA v Council [2000] ECR I-7079, paras 37 and 38