On April 18, 2024, four colleagues eventually received the mind-blowing news they had been waiting for a very long time. The European Court of Justice (ECJ), after almost a decade, published its judgment on several appeal cases: ECLI:EU:C:2024:336 (C‑567/22 P) [1] 18 April 2024. This case has been ongoing for almost as long as Generation 2004 [2] has been in existence.
The cases challenged a specific change to our working conditions that followed the entry into force of the very unpopular second Staff Regulation reform [3] (2014). Among other questionable amendments (e.g. 5% reduction in posts, 40-hour week, reduction of leave days, increased pension age and lowered pension accrual rate [*]), the new Regulation moved all places of origin located outside the EU to the capital city of the staff’s Member State.
‘Where the place of origin as defined in Article 7 is outside the territories of the Member States of the Union as well as outside the countries and territories listed in Annex II to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and the territories of the Member States of the European Free Trade Association, the flat-rate payment shall be based on an allowance per kilometer of geographical distance between the official’s place of employment and the capital city of the Member State whose nationality he holds. Officials whose place of origin is outside the territories of the Member States of the Union as well as outside the countries and territories listed in Annex II to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and the territories of the Member States of the European Free Trade Association and who are not nationals of one of the Member States shall not be entitled to the flat-rate payment.’ (staff regulations [4], Annex VII, Article 8(2) second paragraph.)
This new method resulted in a significant reduction in relation to the amount of the annual travel allowance to which many colleagues had previously been entitled. This same article also meant that, post-Brexit [5], those with a UK point of origin or who held only UK nationality were also affected.
The appeal judgement [6] repealed the judgement of the General Court of Justice and declared the amendment illegal.
Generation2004 is now thoroughly assessing the judgement and its potential consequences and will consult with the administration with a view to understanding the practical implications and how and when they intend to implement the judgement.
As always, we appreciate your feedback [7].
If you appreciate our work, please consider becoming a member of Generation 2004 [8].
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[*] This is also where the AST/SC function group [9] came from: remember several rungs of this scale need a top-up allowance to reach the Luxembourg minimum wage. This reform increased use of non-permanent staff and extension of their maximum contract length, in addition to many other money-saving changes. Check the European Court of Auditors (ECA) Special report no 15/2019 [10]: Implementation of the 2014 staff reform package at the Commission – Big savings but not without consequences for staff lays out what changed for staff for the changes and their impacts. There is a good infographic on p. 12 [11].
