Opinion of Mr advocate-general

Mr President,

Members of the Court,

The present case relates to the calculation of the allowance which Mr Müllers, an official of the Economic and Social Committee, claims to be entitled to for 1969 to reimburse the transport costs of his six year-old son who attends the European School in Brussels.

In my opinion the application seems plainly inadmissible.

In fact, the applicant set out his claims in an application for the grant of the education allowance dated 8 December 1969 and those claims were rejected by a decision of 15 December 1969.

On 19 February 1970, the applicant protested against this rejection in a letter, the nature of which I shall come back to presently.

In application of Article 91 (2) of the Staff Regulations, he should have deemed his protest rejected on the following 20 or 21 April and have appealed against that implied decision rejecting it not later than 21 or 22 June 1970.

But his application was only entered on the Court Register on 11 December 1970, that is almost six months after the end of the period for lodging an appeal to the Court calculated as I have just stated.

But it is true that the applicant puts forward arguments against the claim that his application is inadmissible on the ground that it was out of time, one of which at least is very important.

The applicant puts forward five arguments to defeat the plea of inadmissibility which might be raised against him.

1. First, he claims that the express decision rejecting his protest of 19 February 1970 was only made on 10 September 1970.

2. The applicant maintains that the document dated 15 December 1969 does not constitute a decision on his rights as to the amount of transport costs which he can claim for his child.

3. The applicant maintains thirdly that his letter of 19 February 1970 did not constitute the appeal through official channels laid down in Article 91 (2) of the Staff Regulations.

4. The applicant maintains, and this is his most important argument, that he was misled by a letter from an authority working for his institution dated 31 March 1970, and he was notified in that letter that it was envisaged that these rules would be altered so as to be favourable to his argument and that letter finished with the following sentence: I would therefore ask you to be so good as to wait a little longer for the final solution of this question. When the Heads of Administration have come to their decision you will be officially informed.

5. The last argument which the applicant puts forward as regards the problem of admissibility will not delay me long.

Having made these points I conclude that:

1 Translated from the French.