JUDGMENT OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE (Fifth Chamber)

18 November 2003

Case T-13/02

Falk-Ulrich von Hoff

v

European Parliament

‛Officials — Temporary staff — Installation allowance — Change in place of employment — Default interest’

Full text in German   II-1387

Application for:

first, annulment of the decision of the European Parliament of 17 April 2001 refusing to grant the applicant an installation allowance in connection with the change in his place of employment and, second, an order that the European Parliament pay to the applicant an installation allowance amounting to two months' basic salary, together with interest at 8% from the date of the application.

Held:

The decision of the Parliament of 17 April 2001 refusing to grant the applicant an installation allowance is annulled. The Parliament is ordered to pay the applicant the installation allowance provided for by Article 5 of Annex VII to the Staff Regulations, amounting to two months' basic salary, together with default interest from 24 January 2002. The interest rate to be applied shall be two points higher than the rate fixed by the European Central Bank for principal refinancing operations applicable during the period concerned. The Parliament is ordered to bear all the costs.

Summary

Officials — Reimbursement of expenses — Installation allowance — Change in place of employment — Family having established its residence at the new place of employment by reason of the change, but prior to it — No effect

(Staff Regulations, Art. 20; Annex VII, Art. 5(2) and (4))

Under the terms of Article 5(2) of Annex VII to the Staff Regulations an installation allowance is payable where an official is transferred to a new place of employment and is thereby obliged to change his place of residence in order to comply with Article 20 of the Staff Regulations. That provision refers to the causal link that must exist between the official's change of post and his change of residence. However, it does not establish a predetermined time sequence for the respective dates of, first, the adoption or implementation of the decision to change the place of employment and, second, the actual change of residence. Thus, where it is as a result of the imminence of the official's posting to a new place of employment that his family takes up residence there, his family may physically move to the new residence before the formal decision on the posting is adopted, without having the effect of depriving the official of the allowance in question pursuant to the rule, set out in Article 5(4), that the official is not entitled to the installation allowance if he is posted to the place where his family resides.

(see paras 34. 38. 46)