(Civil service – Officials – Article 35(1)(e) of the Rules of Procedure – Summary statement in application of pleas in law – Staff reporting procedure – Designation of reporting officer and countersigning officer – No act adversely affecting the applicant – Manifest inadmissibility)

Application: brought under Articles 236 EC and 152 EA, in which Mr Nijs seeks annulment of the decision of 27 September 2007 of the Secretary-General of the Court of Auditors, acting in his capacity as the appointing authority, designating the Director of Translation at the Court of Auditors as the applicant’s reporting officer and himself as the countersigning officer for the staff reporting procedure, together with compensation for the non-material damage allegedly suffered.

Held: The action is dismissed as manifestly inadmissible. The applicant is ordered to pay the costs.

Summary

Officials – Actions – Act adversely affecting an official – Definition – Preparatory act – Designation of the reporting officer and the countersigning officer for the assessment procedure

(Staff Regulations, Arts 90(2) and 91(1))

Only measures producing binding legal consequences liable to affect the applicant’s interests directly and immediately by significantly changing his legal situation constitute acts or decisions which may be the subject of an action for annulment. In the case of acts or decisions adopted by a procedure involving several stages, in particular where they are the culmination of an internal procedure, only a measure definitively establishing the position of the institution at the conclusion of that procedure is challengeable, and not a provisional measure intended to pave the way for the final decision, although the validity of the provisional measure may be contested indirectly in an action against the challengeable measure. Even if decisive significance might be attributed to a letter designating an official’s reporting officer and countersigning officer for the purposes of the reporting procedure, that designation constitutes a provisional measure intended to pave the way for the final decision on the assessment of the official’s efficiency, ability and conduct in the service, pursuant to Article 43 of the Staff Regulations. The validity of such a measure can therefore only be called into question in an action against the final assessment report.

(see paras 16-17)

See:

11/64 Weighardt v Commission [1965] ECR 285, 298; 346/87 Bossi v Commission [1989] ECR 303, para. 23

T-32/89 and T-39/89 Marcopoulos v Court of Justice [1990] ECR II‑281, paras 21 and 22; T-358/03 Krahl v Commission [2005] ECR‑SC I‑A‑215 and II‑993, para. 38

F-101/05 Grünheid v Commission [2006] ECR-SC I‑A‑1‑55 and II‑A‑1‑199, para. 33; F‑27/06 and F‑75/06 Lofaro v Commission [2007] ECR-SC I-A-0000 and II-A-0000, para. 57, on appeal before the Court of First Instance, Case T‑293/07 P