JUDGMENT OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE (Seventh Chamber)

15 October 2008

Case T-160/04

Gerasimos Potamianos

v

Commission of the European Communities

(Civil service – Temporary staff – Failure to renew a fixed-term contract)

Application: for annulment of the decision of the authority authorised to conclude contracts of employment not to renew the applicant’s contract as a member of the temporary staff.

Held: The action is dismissed. Mr Gerasimos Potamianos and the Commission are each to bear their own costs.

Summary

1.      Officials – Actions – Prior administrative complaint – Time-limits – Point from which time starts to run

(Staff Regulations, Art. 90(1))

2.      Officials – Members of the temporary staff – Recruitment – Renewal of a fixed-term contract – Administration's discretion

(Conditions of Employment of Other Servants, Arts 8 and 47, first para.)

1.      While it is true that it is usually from the date of its signature that a contract produces its effects and it is therefore from the date of signature that the period for lodging a complaint in due time in accordance with Article 90(1) of the Staff Regulations must be calculated, a decision not to renew the contract of a member of the temporary staff constitutes a separate decision from the contract in question and may therefore be the subject of a complaint or even an appeal within the periods provided for in the Staff Regulations.

(see para. 21)

See: T‑137/99 and T‑18/00 Martinez Paramo and Others v Commission [2002] ECR-SC I‑A‑119 and II‑639, para. 56

2.      Although Article 8 of the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants makes it possible to renew a temporary staff contract, it is not an entitlement, but merely a possibility left to the discretion of the competent authority. The Community institutions have a wide discretion to organise their departments to suit the tasks entrusted to them and to assign the staff available to them in the light of such tasks on condition, however, that the staff are assigned in the interest of the service.

(see para. 30)

See: 176/82 Nebe v Commission [1983] ECR 2475, para. 18; 69/83 Lux v Court of Auditors [1984] ECR 2447, para. 17