Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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1 . Officials - Remuneration - Expatriation allowance - Object

( Staff Regulations, Annex VII, Art . 4(1 ) )

2 . Community law - Principles - Protection of legitimate expectations - Conditions

3 . Officials - Principles - Protection of legitimate expectations - Conditions - Request for confirmation of entitlement made by an official - Silence of the administration - Undertaking given by the administration contrary to the Staff Regulations - Circumstances not giving rise to legitimate expectations

4 . Officials - Remuneration - Expatriation allowance - Conditions for granting - Adoption of new criteria - Subsequent refusal of allowance to an official - Maintenance of vested rights to the allowance of officials recruited prior to the modification - Discrimination - None

( Staff Regulations, Annex VII, Art . 4(1 ) )

5 . Acts of the institutions - Withdrawal - Conditions

Summary

1 . The object of the expatriation allowance is to compensate officials for the extra expense and inconvenience of taking up employment with the Communities and being thereby obliged to change their residence, move to the country of employment and become integrated into a new environment .

2 . The protection of legitimate expectations extends to any individual who is in a situation in which it appears that the conduct of the Community administration has led him to entertain reasonable expectations .

3 . An official may not plead a breach of the principle of the protection of legitimate expectations unless the administration has given him precise assurances . The administration' s silence following an official' s request for confirmation of his entitlement, however regrettable it may be, cannot amount to a confirmation of the official' s entitlement, nor can it be considered to be a precise assurance given by the administration .

Even if an official receives erroneous confirmation from the administration of the entitlement which he claims, such an undertaking cannot create a legitimate expectation, since no official of a Community institution can give a valid undertaking not to apply Community law and the communication of an incorrect interpretation of Community rules cannot give rise to liability on the part of the administration . Promises which do not take account of the provisions of the Staff Regulations cannot give rise to legitimate expectation on the part of the person concerned .

4 . An institution is entitled, in compliance with the principle of protection of vested rights, to refuse to pay an expatriation allowance to an official who, during the period referred to in Article 4(1)(a ) of Annex VII to the Staff Regulations, habitually carried on his occupation in the territory of his State of employment, as an employee of organizations which, as a result of the adoption of new criteria, were no longer treated at the time of that official' s recruitment as international organizations for the purposes of the abovementioned provision, while at the same time continuing to grant that allowance to officials previously employed by the same organizations but recruited at a time when different criteria applied to the concept of "international organization ".

5 . The retroactive withdrawal of a legal measure which has conferred individual rights or similar benefits is contrary to the general principles of law .