Luxemburg, 19/07/2006 (Agence Europe) - For a second time the European Court of Justice has found against Italy for failing to take account of foreign-languages assistants' length of service for the purposes of pay and social security, when this criterion was considered in calculating the salaries of Italian lecturers. The Court recognised, however, when it examined this case, Italy had complied with European law and the discrimination not longer existed. The Court judged, therefore, that there were no grounds for imposing a penalty payment on Italy, as the European Commission had requested. The discrimination was against foreign-language assistants, posts which were abolished and replaced by those of “linguistic associates” in the universities of La Basilicata, Milan, Palermo, Pisa, La Sapienza in Rome and the Eastern University Institute in Naples.
The European Commission, which brought the action against Italy, proposed a daily penalty payment of €309,750 until it complied with the Court's 2001 ruling, which found against Italy for a first time. The European Court of Justice criticised the fact that assistants with ten or twenty years of service on fixed term contracts had been re-employed on contracts for an indefinite period on the same salaries as young lecturers on their first contract (see EUROPE 8001). Advocate General Maduro gave his conclusions in January 2006 (see EUROPE 9118).