EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 276/20

(Case T-318/22)

(2022/C 276/29)

Language of the case: Italian

Parties

Applicant: Roberto Passalacqua (Brussels, Belgium) (represented by: G. Belotti, lawyer)

Defendant: European Commission

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the Court should:

—annul the Commission’s decision not to promote the applicant to grade AD 11 in the 2021 promotion procedure, which resulted from his failure to appear on the list of promoted officials;

—annul the Commission’s decision to promote to grade AD 11 the officials appearing on the list of promoted officials in the 2021 promotion procedure;

—annul the Commission’s decision of 1 April 2022 rejecting complaint No. R/620/21 lodged by the applicant within the meaning of Article 90(2) of the Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Union;

—annul all preliminary, consequential or connected acts or measures;

—or, in the alternative, make provision for compensation for the damage resulting from the Commission’s unlawful measures.

Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of the action, the applicant relies on two pleas in law.

1.First plea in law, alleging misuse of powers and claiming that the applicant’s merits were assessed with clear and unjustified bias as compared with those of other officials who were less deserving of promotion.

—The applicant refers, in that regard, to the power not to promote an official, which the Commission certainly has so that it can carry out impartial comparative assessments of merits, but which was misused in this instance in order to penalise the applicant for a scientific presentation in the field of nuclear energy given by him in 2021; he alleges that due approval for the presentation had been given in advance and that it was greatly appreciated by those who attended, but that it was subsequently met with disapproval from a high-ranking official from another Directorate-General and that official had on previous occasions engaged in inappropriate verbal conduct with the applicant.

2.Second plea in law, alleging that although the Commission is not obliged to provide reasons for its decisions vis-à-vis candidates who are not promoted, it does, however, have an obligation to provide reasons for a decision by which it rejects complaints lodged, within the meaning of Article 90(2) of the Staff Regulations, by a candidate who has not been promoted, and the reasoning in that decision must coincide with the reasoning of the decision against which the claim was lodged. That obligation was not met in the present case.

—In that regard, the applicant claims, additionally, that the reasoning for the rejection of its complaint does not appear to be adequate to meet the standards of objectivity and impartiality required by the settled case-law of EU law in the present field.