European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound)

(Civil service – Members of the temporary staff – European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions – Resignation – Action for annulment and damages – No decision adversely affecting an individual – Manifest inadmissibility)

Application: brought under Articles 236 EC and 152 EA, in which Mrs Tesoka seeks, first, annulment of Eurofound’s decision of 14 October 2005 rejecting her claim for the damages to which she alleges she is entitled on account of the termination of her employment in the Foundation, and the return of the documents necessary to enable her to obtain unemployment benefits in her country of residence, and secondly, damages.

Held: The action is dismissed as manifestly inadmissible. The parties are to bear their own costs.

Summary

(Staff Regulations, Art. 91; Council Regulation No 1365/75, Art. 17(2); Commission Regulation No 91/88)

(Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 44(1)(c))

1.Only acts producing binding legal effects capable of affecting, directly and individually, the interests of the parties concerned by bringing about a distinct change in their legal situation can be considered to affect them adversely. Moreover, certain decisions, even though they do not affect the pecuniary interests or rank of the official in question, may be regarded, in the light of the nature of the functions concerned and the circumstances, as acts adversely affecting that official if they adversely affect his non-pecuniary interests or future prospects.

That does not apply to a letter from the Director of the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions stating that he cannot grant the request of a former member of the temporary staff to withdraw her decision to resign. Such a letter does not affect the situation of the individual concerned under the Staff Regulations, since that situation has in fact been determined by her decision to resign, which took immediate effect.

The legal situation of the individual concerned is also not changed by the fact that the Foundation explained, in the same letter, that she did not need documents from the administration in order to register with her national employment service.

(see paras 39-43)

See:

35/72 Kley v Commission [1973] ECR 679, paras 4 and 5; 125/80 Arning v Commission [1981] ECR 2539, para. 17; C-32/92 P Moat v Commission [1992] ECR I‑6379, para. 9; C-373/04 P Commission v Alvarez Moreno [2006] ECR I‑1*, para. 42

2.A claim for annulment of an application made by a former member of the temporary staff seeking to obtain, without going into detail and using imprecise terms, all the allowances and advantages, in other words the financial benefits, to which that person can lay claim by reason of her resignation, does not satisfy the conditions laid down by Article 44(1)(c) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance.

(see paras 49-50)

See:

T-72/92 Benzler v Commission [1993] ECR II‑347, paras 16, 18 and 19