Brussels, 29/07/2011 (Agence Europe) - National law which sets a compulsory retirement age of 65 for civil servants (allowing them the opportunity to continue to the age of 68 if the needs of the department require) complies with European legislation in that it pursues the objective of establishing “a balanced age structure” in order to encourage the recruitment of young people, optimise staff management and avoid possible litigation on the ability of civil servants to fulfil their functions beyond a certain age. To achieve this objective, the measure must be “appropriate and necessary”, and not appear “unreasonable” in the light of the aim pursued.
With this ruling in two similar cases (C-159/10 and C-160/10), the Court gave its response to the Frankfurt Administrative Court (Hessen, Germany) which was hearing age discrimination actions lodged by two state prosecutors who had been forced to take retirement on reaching the age of 65, in line with civil service law in the Land of Hessen. The German court had questions as to whether the age limit set by the law for exercising the role of state prosecutor with Directive 2000/78/EC on equal treatment in employment and occupation. It wondered if the compulsory retirement of the two plaintiffs at the age of 65 did not constitute age discrimination in contravention of the directive.
Its questions focused on whether the provisions on retirement age in the German law pursued the objective of “general interest” and how such an objective could be defined from the point of view of EU law. In particular, it asked about the legitimacy, with regard to the European directive, of a number of criteria in the law, including: - the interest of saving budgetary resources by restricting recruitment to reduce staff expenditure; - the desire by the employer for planning certainty as regards the retirement of staff; - the interest of “ a favourable age stratification” or “favourable age structure” despite the absence of general standards or statutory rules on what constitutes correct age stratification or age structure; - the opening up of promotion opportunities for civil servants; - the imposition of an age limit to avoid litigation over the fitness of older people for service.
Other questions related to the requirements that a law on age limits must fulfil to be “appropriate and apt” in pursuit of the objectives of general interest: the proportion of older civil servants who wish to continue working compared with those who have retired, whether or not there is any preference for voluntary, rather than compulsory, retirement, reduced pension for those who retire before the legal retirement age in order not to burden the pensions budget, retirement depending exclusively on the interests of the employers. The court also asked whether certain provisions of the law were consistent with the objective of raising retirement age.
In providing very detailed responses to all these questions based on case law, the Court offers a basis for interpreting all the criteria in an area - raising retirement ages and amending laws for this purpose - very much in the news at the moment and one which is the subject of debate in all member states. The ruling on Case C-159/10 can be viewed at: http://www.curia.europa.eu/jcms/j_6/ (F.G./transl.rt)