21.9.2020

Official Journal of the European Union

C 313/11

(Case C-265/20)

(2020/C 313/13)

Language of the case: Dutch

Referring court

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: FN

Defendants: Universiteit Antwerpen, Vlaamse Autonome Hogeschool Hogere Zeevaartschool, PB, ZK, NG, ZN, UM

Questions referred

Must Clause 4.1 of the framework agreement on fixed-term work concluded on 18 March 1999, as set out in the Annex to Council Directive 1999/70/EC of 28 June 1999 concerning the framework agreement on fixed-term work concluded by ETUC, UNICE and CEEP, (1) and Clause 4.1 of the Framework Agreement on part-time work set out in the Annex to Council Directive 97/81/EC of 15 December 1997 concerning the Framework Agreement on part-time work concluded by UNICE, CEEP and the ETUC, (2) be interpreted as precluding a university, on the basis of national legislation (Article 91 of the Decree concerning universities) under which independent academic staff with full-time positions are appointed on a permanent basis, and staff with part-time positions may either be appointed, or employed on a temporary basis for renewable periods of a maximum of six years, from being permitted to:

1.employ a professor, using the justification of ‘freedom of policy’, over a period of twenty years on the basis of some twenty consecutive, short-term and part-time employment contracts and statutory appointments of between one and three years, without any limit on the total number of renewals, while other colleagues with similar duties were appointed on a permanent and full-time basis?

2.stipulate in its staff regulations only a general minimum limit of an appointment percentage at 50 percent in order to be eligible for a permanent appointment, but not lay down a single criterion on the basis of which the part-time staff appointed at 50 percent or greater can be appointed on a permanent or temporary basis?

3.award appointment percentages to a part-time professor, using the justification of unlimited ‘freedom of policy’, without laying down objective criteria, and without applying any objective workload measurement?

4.deny a temporary and part-time professor, when his employment is not renewed, using the justification of the university’s ‘freedom of policy’, the right to invoke the allegedly abusive nature of the past employment conditions, because he had, so to speak, always accepted those conditions by carrying out the allocated work, with the result that he forfeits the protection afforded by EU law?

*

(1) OJ 1999 L 175, p. 43.

(2) OJ 1998 L 14, p. 9.