Opinion of Mr Advocate-General Trabucchi

Mr President,

Members of the Court,

1. After having, of his own accord and free will, abandoned a ship in distress, a sailor asks to be put on board again in order to get into a more comfortable lifeboat; this is how I should be tempted to describe the situation of Mr Geerlings, the applicant in the present case. After having served nine years as a scientific officer of Euratom and having, without success, sounded out the possibilities of the provisions of Article 41 of the Staff Regulations, which deals with assignment to non-active status, being applied to him — his letter of 17 April 1969 to the administration and its reply of 9 June 1969 — the applicant decided of his own accord to leave the service Euratom with effect from 1 July 1969 (the applicant's memorandum of 14 June 1969). When announcing his departure, he reiterated in more general terms the request for financial compensation, which was not available under the normal resignation procedure. In a letter of 24 December 1973 addressed to the Commission, the applicant confirmed what he had stated in his memorandum of 17 April 1969, referred to above, and declared that he had decided to leave the Community because changes in the Euratom research programme no longer allowed him to carry out any work of importance and that, in consequence, he could for all intents and purposes be regarded as redundant.

2. In letters of 14 June 1970 and 13 December 1971, the applicant had requested to be reinstated in employment pursuant to Article 40 of the Staff Regulations. The Commission rejected both requests on the ground that the research budget approved by the Council had removed any real possibility of reinstating scientific staff at the end of a period of leave on personal grounds. The Commission pointed out that there were a number of scientific officers on the staff who were to all intents and purposes supernumerary and who must, if an appointment had to be made to a vacancy in the scientific section, be recognized as having priority over officials such as Mr Geerlings, who were not at that time in the service.

3. This conclusion adverse to the applicant could, however, be avoided if there were substance in the objection he has against the Commission's repeated refusal to reinstate him during the period previous to entry into force of the regulation with which we are concerned.

I am therefore of opinion that the appeal should be dismissed, with appropriate order as to costs.

1 Translated from the Italian.