Opinion of Mr Advocate General Mancini

Mr President,

Members of the Court,

1. As the Court is aware, Article 4 (1) (b) of Annex VII to the Staff Regulations provides that officials who are nationals of the State in whose territory the place where they are employed is situated are entitled to an expatriation allowance equal to 16% of the basic salary if they can prove that they have habitually resided outside the territory of that State for at least 10 years before entering the service of the European Communities.

2. The argument is not well-founded. I would point out first that the purpose of the benefit in question is to compensate officials for the extra expense and inconvenience of taking up employment with the Communities and being thereby obliged to change their residence (judgment of 16 October 1980, Case 147/79 Hochstrass v Court of Justice [1980] ECR 3005, at paragraph 12). The Administration is therefore obliged to grant the allowance only if the official can satisfy it that, although retaining the nationality of the State in which his place of employment lies, he departed from that State with the intention of severing, for a long period of time, the social and professional ties which would normally link him to it.

3. In short, I would conclude that Mr Richter's claim is not substantiated by unequivocal and coherent evidence. I -therefore propose that the Court should dismiss his application against the Commission of the European Communities and order the parties to bear their own costs in accordance with Article 70 of the Rules of Procedure.

1 Translated from the Italian.