In conclusions returned on Wednesday 25 July, Advocate General Michal Bobek at the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) proposed to uphold the judgment of the General Court of the EU of September 2016 cancelling two notices of competition of the European Personnel Selection Office (EPSO) (case C-621/16).
The reason for this is that the decision to limit the second competition language to German, English and French was not properly justified.
In November 2012, the CJEU found in a judgment that the decision to limit the choice of second language in the EPSO competitions constituted discrimination, unless the decision was justified by the interests of the service (see EUROPE 10741).
This means that if a limitation is lawful, it must be based on clear, objective and predictable criteria, so that candidates are able to know far enough in advance language skills required in order to be able to prepare for competitions in the best possible conditions.
In 2014, EPSO published two competition notices, referring to general provisions governing the competitions. These state, amongst other things, that the choice of second language is normally limited to German, English and French in the interest of the service, so that new recruits can be operational as soon as possible and communicate effectively on a daily basis.
Wishing to challenge this limitation to 3 second languages, Italy applied to have these notices cancelled and the General Court found in its favour in September 2016. The Commission then appealed to the Court of Justice to have the General Court judgment overturned.
In his conclusions, the Advocate General finds in favour of Italy, contesting most of the Commission's arguments. Firstly, he points out that the competition notices are legally binding and can be challenged. He also considers that the General Court did not exceed its powers of assessment and that the staff regulations of European officials, particularly the language rules, apply to candidates once their application has been validated.
The Advocate General also recommends that the Court draw a distinction between the external communications of institutions, in which multilingualism should apply without exception, and internal communications, in which the rules can be more flexible.
In the case of the EPSO competitions, he proposes to establish general guidelines that can be departed from in particular cases for which reasons are given. However, Bobek considers that whichever approach is adopted, the system of competitions should not be devised in such a way that an advantage is given to native speakers of certain languages, if only certain languages are available in the framework of tests. (Original version in French by Lucas Tripoteau)