Luxembourg, 19/05/2004 (Agence Europe) - The Court of Justice has limited the professional use of official cars by judges to 15,000 km. To date, it has been 30,000 km for Court members and for the president of the Court of First Instance, and 25,000 km for Court of First Instance judges. A recent resolution of the European Parliament had called upon the Court to amend its rules, as judges must themselves fully cover the use charge, other than for official travel, when using official services. This resolution had been adopted in the context of the Commission's discharge for execution of the budget 2002.
Further to this resolution, the Court said it had "clarified the situation". The Court adopted a decision whereby the budget of the institution covers, up to 15,000 km, the cost of renting and the cost of the vehicles made available to judges in the exercise of their function. Such use is limited to travelling from home to the workplace, protocol obligations and official missions.
In its same resolution, the Parliament also referred to an internal administrative decision by the Court allowing its members to transfer part of their salary to Member States other than Luxembourg, their place of work having the advantage of correcting coefficients (foreseen for European officials, they are fixed by the Council to offset the differences of the cost of living in some Member States).
The Parliament recalled that members of the European Commission no longer call for application of the correcting coefficient and invited members of the Court of Justice to "do the same".