Judgments nº T-493/14 of The General Court, February 17, 2017

• Resolution Date: February 17, 2017
• Issuing Organization: The General Court
• Decision Number: T-493/14

(Seconded national expert - EFSA rules on SNEs - Decision not to extend the secondment - Access to documents - Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 - Refusal to grant access - Exception relating to the protection of privacy and the integrity of the individual - Protection of personal data - Regulation (EC) No 45/2001 - Applications for a declaration and seeking the issue of directions - Written pleadings supplementing the originating application - Amendments to the heads of claim - Admissibility)

In Case T-493/14,

Ingrid Alice Mayer, residing in Ellwangen (Germany), represented by T. Mayer, lawyer,

applicant,

v

European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), represented by D. Detken, acting as Agent, R. Van der Hout and A. Köhler, lawyers,

defendant,

ACTION brought under Article 263 TFEU challenging the decisions of EFSA, first, dismissing the applicant’s request to extend her secondment as a national expert at EFSA and, second, refusing her request for access to documents held by EFSA,

THE GENERAL COURT (First Chamber),

composed of H. Kanninen, President, I. Pelikánová and E. Buttigieg (Rapporteur), Judges,

Registrar: S. Bukšek Tomac, Administrator,

having regard to the written part of the procedure and further to the hearing on 6 July 2016,

gives the following

Judgment

Background to the dispute

1 The applicant, Ms Ingrid Alice Mayer, has been a civil servant with the Land Saxony (Germany) since 1 November 1992. Ms Mayer was seconded to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) from 1 July 2013 under a contract concluded on the same day between herself, EFSA and the Land Saxony (‘the contract’). In accordance with Article 5 thereof, the contract was concluded for one year, until 30 June 2014. According to Article 4 of the decision of the Executive Directive of EFSA of 18 February 2013 laying down the rules on secondment for national experts and national experts in professional training at EFSA (‘the SNE rules’), applicable to the contract, a secondment may be renewed one or several times, but the total period of the secondment may not, in principle, exceed four years.

2 On 4 September 2013, the applicant was elected representative for seconded national experts to the Staff Committee of EFSA (‘the Staff Committee’) for a period of three years. On 16 December 2013, as a result of a disagreement with the president of the Staff Committee concerning a case to be dealt with in the applicant’s absence, the Staff Committee decided to suspend her from her Staff Committee duties for six months, with immediate effect, on the ground that she had breached her duty of confidentiality.

3 On 18 December 2013, the applicant lodged a written complaint against the suspension decision at issue with the Executive Director of EFSA, requesting him to impose a disciplinary sanction on the president of the Staff Committee. By email of 17 January 2014, the Staff Committee formally notified the applicant that it had decided to exclude her from participation in its meetings.

4 On 8 and 31 January 2014, the applicant had meetings with her immediate superior, Mr D., who informed her, during the second meeting, that EFSA did not intend to extend her contract as the operational needs of the unit in which she was working had changed, and her profile no longer corresponded to the necessary requirements. The applicant claims that during the second interview, Mr D. mentioned a request for access to documents from the network of non-governmental organisations, Pesticide Action Network Europe (PAN Europe), concerning the emails exchanged between a senior official of EFSA, Ms K., and International Life Sciences Institute (‘ILSI’), a private organisation active in the nutrition sector. The EFSA challenges that assertion.

5 By letter of 16 April 2014, concerning the ‘end of [her] contract of secondment’, EFSA informed the applicant that that contract would expire on 30 June 2014, while indicating that she could lodge a complaint with the Director of EFSA under Article 23 of the SNE rules.

6 In the applicant’s view, the incidents which took place within the Staff Committee, and the fact that, as a result of Mr D.’s revelations, she had become an involuntary witness to a conflict of interests concerning the relations between the EFSA and ILSI were the reasons for her ‘expulsion’. Therefore, on 24 April 2014, the applicant lodged a complaint with the Director of the EFSA, based on Article 23 of the SNE rules, against the abovementioned letter of 16 April 2014. The complaint was supplemented by observations submitted on 5 and 10 June 2014.

7 On 12 May 2014, the applicant requested EFSA for access to all the emails exchanged between Ms K. and ILSI, a request which it refused on 5 June 2014, on the basis of Article 4(1)(b) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents (OJ 2001 L 145, p. 43).

8 On 8 June 2014, the applicant sent EFSA a confirmatory request for access to the documents concerned, supplemented by a letter of 15 June 2014.

9 By letter of 27 June 2014, EFSA, first, dismissed the complaint brought by the applicant under Article 23 of the SNE rules against the abovementioned letter of 16 April 2014, observing that Article 4(1) of the SNE rules provided that ‘the initial period of secondment [could] not be less than six months or more than two years [and it could] be renewed once or more, up to a total period not exceeding four years’. Therefore, there was no right to renewal of the contract. Furthermore, EFSA relies on its discretion in the organisation of its services and sets out the reasons justifying its decision not to extend the contract, while, in that context, refuting certain allegations made by the applicant in various emails which had been previously sent to it by her.

10 Second, by the same letter of 27 June 2014, EFSA refused the confirmatory request for access to the abovementioned documents based on the exception laid down in Article 4(1)(b) of Regulation No 1049/2001. EFSA states that, where a request based on that regulation seeks access to documents containing personal data, the provisions of Regulation (EC) No 45/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2000 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data by the Community institutions and bodies and on the free movement of such data (OJ 2001 L 8, p. 1) become applicable in full. Article 8(b) of Regulation No 45/2001 requires the recipient of personal data to establish the necessity of having them transferred, by way of legitimate justifications or...