Brussels, 13/09/2011 (Agence Europe) - Member states must take account of periods worked as an interim civil servant when a certain number of years' service is required for the internal promotion of career civil servants. The duties carried out as an interim civil servant must, however, be “comparable” to those carried out by a career civil servant and no other “objective grounds” justify different treatment.
With this ruling handed down on 8 September in case C-177/10, the Court of Justice of the EU gave its response to the Court for Contentious Administrative Proceedings, No 12, Seville, which asked it to interpret Directive 1999/70/EEC which implements the framework agreement on fixed-term work concluded by ETUC, UNICE and CEEP. These two instruments seek to improve the quality of fixed-term work and lays down a principle of non-discrimination between fixed-term and permanent workers “unless different treatment is justified on objective grounds” (the specific nature of the tasks for the performance of which fixed-term contracts have been concluded and from the inherent characteristics of those tasks or pursuit of a legitimate social-policy objective, etc.)
In its ruling, the Court states that the directive and the framework agreement apply to fixed-term employment contracts and relationships concluded with the public authorities and other public-sector bodies and goes on to say that an interim civil servant cannot receive different treatment from a career civil servant simply on the grounds that he/she has a fixed-term contract. On that basis, periods of service completed by an interim civil servant must be taken into account if he/she, having become a permanent civil servant in the meantime, applies for internal promotion only open to career civil servants. That this service was carried out when the civil servant was on a temporary contract does not constitute objective grounds for denying promotion. (F.G./transl.rt)