JUDGMENT OF THE EUROPEAN UNION CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL

(Second Chamber)

20 June 2012

Case F‑79/11

Andreas Menidiatis

v

European Commission

(Civil service — Official — Recruitment — Rejection of application — Implementation of judgment annulling the decision — Reasonable time — Individual implementing measures — Loss of opportunity)

Application: brought under Article 270 TFEU, applicable to the EAEC Treaty by virtue of Article 106a thereof, seeking an order that the Commission pay Mr Menidiatis, first, the sum of EUR 10 000 in respect of the loss of opportunity suffered as a result of its failure to take measures to implement the judgment of the Tribunal of 2 April 2009 in Case F‑128/07 Menidiatis v Commission, and, second, the sum of EUR 5 000 for the non-material damage allegedly caused to him by the Commission’s failure to disclose the action it intended to take on the Menidiatis judgment.

Held: The action is dismissed. The applicant is to bear his own costs and to pay those incurred by the Commission.

Summary

1.      Officials — Actions — Judgment annulling a measure — Effects — Annulment of a recruitment procedure — Administration’s obligations

(Art. 266 TFEU)

2.      Officials — Actions — Judgment annulling a measure — Effects — Obligation to implement — Reasonable time — Replacement, by a new decision, of an annulled Commission recruitment decision

(Art. 266 TFEU)

1.      Where a recruitment procedure has been annulled by the Union judicature, the annulling judgment may not, under any circumstances, affect the discretionary power of the administration to widen its field of choice in the interests of the service by withdrawing the original vacancy notice and at the same time initiating a fresh procedure to fill the post at issue. Since the appointing authority cannot carry through the original recruitment procedure, which has been declared unlawful in the annulling judgment, it is a fortiori entitled to initiate a fresh recruitment procedure without being obliged to take up the procedure at the stage it had reached before the adoption of the unlawful act.

(see para. 37)

See:

15 April 2010, F‑104/08 Angelidis v Parliament, para. 42

2.      It is not normally possible to comply immediately with a judgment annulling a measure, since it requires the adoption of a number of administrative measures, and so the institutions must have a reasonable time to comply with such a judgment.

In the case of a judgment of the Civil Service Tribunal allowing the Commission various options when choosing a legal framework for the adoption of a new decision on filling posts of head of the Commission’s representations, a period of five months is reasonable for examining the various legal solutions and then adopting a new decision on filling head of representation posts.

(see paras 40, 43)

See:

12 January 1984, 266/82 Turner v Commission, para. 5

10 July 1997, T‑81/96 Apostolidis and Others v Commission, para. 37