The Italian system for recruiting administrative, technical and auxiliary staff in state education violates the European social partners’ framework agreement on fixed-term work (annexed to Directive 1999/70), ruled the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in a judgment delivered on Wednesday 13 May (Case C-155/25).
In Italy, administrative, technical and ancillary staff in state schools are recruited on fixed-term contracts (FTC) to fill temporary vacancies. However, such staff can only be granted permanent status in these same posts through competitive examinations, which are not organised according to a precise timetable and which are reserved for employees who can demonstrate at least two years’ experience under this type of contract.
The European Commission brought the matter before the CJEU, arguing that this system is incompatible with EU law, which sets limits on the use of fixed-term contracts and favours permanent recruitment procedures (clause 5 of the framework agreement).
The Court of Justice upheld the Commission’s action. It noted that the Italian regulatory framework establishes neither a maximum duration nor a maximum number of temporary contracts for the staff in question. Furthermore, Italy cannot rely on a need for flexibility as justification, since Italian legislation fails to specify precise and concrete circumstances that would warrant the use of successive fixed-term contracts and ensure that such contracts actually meet such a need for flexibility.
Moreover, the European Court held that the requirement - whereby, in order to be granted permanent status via a competitive examination, a staff member must prove two years’ service under a fixed-term contract - encourages the use of this type of contract even when they meet permanent and long-term staffing needs. And the organisation of competitive examinations in the recent past is unable to prevent abuses resulting from the use of successive fixed-term contracts, due to the ad hoc and unforeseeable nature of when such examinations are held.
See the judgment of the Court of Justice: https://aeur.eu/f/lwk (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)