The complaint

1. The complainant took part in a selection procedure for recruiting EU civil servants, which was organised by the European Personnel Selection Office (EPSO)^[1]. The selection procedure was organised to recruit staff in the field of security operations.

2. EPSO informed the complainant that he was not eligible to participate in the selection procedure since he did not have the necessary professional experience to meet the eligibility criteria set out in the ‘notice of competition’.^[2]

3. The complainant asked EPSO to review its decision. Following the review, EPSO informed the complainant that the selection board had confirmed its decision not to admit the complainant to the selection procedure.

4. Dissatisfied with the outcome of the review, the complainant turned to the Ombudsman on 8 October 2019.

The inquiry

5. The Ombudsman opened an inquiry into the complaint about how the selection board assessed the complainant’s professional experience. The complainant contended in particular that selection board wrongfully excluded him from the competition as it did not consider his professional experience in fire rescue.

6. In the course of the inquiry, the Ombudsman’s inquiry team inspected EPSO's file relevant to this case. The inspection report, with EPSO’s detailed explanations, is annexed to this decision.

The Ombudsman's assessment

7. In assessing candidates, selection boards are bound by the eligibility criteria for the selection procedure in question. At the same time, according to EU case-law, selection boards have a wide margin of discretion when assessing a candidate’s qualifications and professional experience against those criteria.^[3] The Ombudsman’s role is thus limited to determining if there was a manifest error by the selection board.^[4]

8. The documents and explanations given to the Ombudsman during the inspection of EPSO’s file (see the inspection report annexed to this decision) do not indicate any manifest error in how the selection board assessed the complainant’s eligibility.

9. A candidate’s personal belief about the relevance of his profile cannot call into question the selection board’s assessment and does not constitute evidence of manifest error by the selection board^[5].

10. Finally, the Ombudsman considers unfounded the complainant’s argument that the selection board did not take into account his professional experience in fire rescue. In his online application, the complainant declared 13 months and 20 days of professional experience in fire rescue. The value automatically calculated by the application, based on the start and end dates, was 141 months and 25 days. During his part-time tenure as a voluntary firefighter, the complainant held different positions in other domains as well. Therefore, the selection board took into account solely the 13 months and 20 days declared by the complainant.

11. Initially, the selection board considered the values of the complainant’s professional experience in fire rescue, as indicated by him, to be 50% relevant to the duties described in the notice of competition. Upon his request for review, this experience was considered fully relevant. However, this did not alter the selection board’s decision on eligibility, since his professional experience of relevance to the competition fell below the required 72 months.

12. On the basis of the above, the Ombudsman finds no maladministration in how the selection board assessed the complainant’s eligibility.

Conclusions

Based on the inquiry, the Ombudsman closes this case with the following conclusion^[6]:

There was no maladministration in how the European Personnel Selection Office assessed the complainant’s eligibility.

The complainant and EPSO will be informed of this decision.

 

Emily O'Reilly

European Ombudsman

Strasbourg, 13/01/2020

 

[1] EPSO/AST/147/19 - 1 - https://epso.europa.eu/epsocrs-ref-numbers/epso-ast-147-19-1_en. 

[2] The eligibility criteria are defined in the ‘notice of competition’, which sets out the criteria and rules applying to the selection procedure.

[3]Judgment of the General Court of 11 February 1999, Case T-244/97, Mertens v Commission, paragraph 44: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/HR/TXT/?uri=CELEX:61997TJ0244; judgment of the General Court of 11 May 2005, Case T-25/03, De Stefano v Commission, paragraph 34: http://curia.europa.eu/juris/celex.jsf?celex=62003TJ0025&lang1=en&type=TXT&ancre=.

[4] See Decision of the European Ombudsman closing the inquiry into complaint 14/2010/ANA against the

European Personnel Selection Office, paragraph 14 (decision available here:

https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/cases/decision.faces/en/10427/html.bookmark#_ftnref5); and judgment of the Court of First Instance of 31 May 2005, Case T-294/03, Gibault v Commission, paragraph 41: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:62003TJ0294.

[5] Judgment of the Court of First Instance (Third Chamber) of 15 July 1993 in Joined Cases T-17/90, T-28/91 and T-17/92, Camara Alloisio e.a. v Commission, paragraph 90: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/GA/TXT/?uri=CELEX:61990TJ0017; judgment of the Court of First Instance of 23 January 2003, Case T-53/00, Angioli v Commission, paragraph 94: http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf;jsessionid=5C753C4AA9003D9CA2267431863773CE?text=&docid=47998&pageIndex=0&doclang=FR&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=6802917

[6] Full information on the procedure and rights pertaining to complaints can be found at https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/document/70707