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Languages and EU law: Case T-185/05

By Bartolus

There's nothing quite as sensitive as the law of languages in EU law. And the judgment of the Court of First Instance in Case T-185/05 Italy v. Commission shows just how sensitive and litigious the member States are about languages.

The Commission decided in principle in 2004 to publish job vacancies for a senior positions in English, French and German only. Then, in 2005, it published a vacancy for the post of Director general in OLAF, the Commission's infamous anti-fraud office, in English, French and German only.

Italy, supported by Latvia and Spain, brought an action to annul both the 2004 decision of principle and the job vacancy in OLAF on the ground that they breached Regulation n° 1/1958 which, they claimed, required that all notices affecting citizens throughout the EU must be published in all languages. They also claimed that publication in selected languages was a breach of Article 12 EC because it discriminated against the citizens who spoke the other languages.

The Court of First Instance annulled the two measures.

But the Court of First Instance did not agree with Italy that the Commission had breached Regulation n° 1/1958. It held that Regulation n° 1/1958 did not lay down a general principle that the institutions are required routinely to publish the vacancy notices at issue in the Official Journal in all the official languages. The Court of First Instance recalled that Regulation n° 1 does not apply to relations between the institutions and their employees, including candidates for jobs (Case T-203/03 Rasmussen v. Commission, paragraph 60).

The Court of First Instance also held that there is no general principle of EC law that confers a right on every citizen to have a version of anything that might affect his interests drawn up in his language in all circumstances (Case C-361/01 P Kik v OHIM, paragraph 82). Such a general principle could not, for example, be inferred from Article 290 EC and Article 314 EC.

On the other hand, the Court of First Instance found that the publication of posts in selected languages is discriminatory and should be annulled for that reason.

Full post as published by EU Law Blog on November 23, 2008 (boomark / email).