Since 2012, EIPA’s European Centre for Judges and Lawyers (ECJL) in Luxembourg has held annual conferences on the theme ‘European Union Civil Service Law’. These events have been a great success and attracted the enthusiasm of many participants, including judges from the European Union Civil Service Tribunal (now defunct) and General Court, legal representatives of the European institutions, university professors and lawyers specialised in this field. In light of this, EIPA wishes to repeat the experience by organising the 9th Annual Conference. This will be an occasion to explore some of the recent developments in both substantive and procedural law.

Target group

The conference is geared towards civil servants and officials of the EU institutions and agencies who are responsible for legal aspects of human resources management; members of trade unions of the EU institutions; lawyers specialised in EU civil service litigation; national experts of civil service law; as well as officials of international, non-EU organisations who are responsible for staff matters.

Objective

The aim of the conference is twofold: first, to inform participants about recent developments in the case law of the General Court and to look in more detail at specific issues regarding civil service litigation in the EU, including those which are currently on the agenda; and secondly, to provide scope for a debate and a critical assessment of this case law among the key actors concerned, namely judges, lawyers and staff of the institutions.

Methodology

In addition to traditional presentations, this year’s conference will focus on discussions between the experts and participants.

Experts

Julian Currall, Barrister, Alber & Geiger, Brussels, former Principal Legal Adviser – Legal Service and Director of the ECS Team, European Commission, Brussels

Anna Duron, Avocat at the Paris Bar, Ashurst, Brussels

Stéphane Gervasoni, Judge at the General Court of the European Union, Luxembourg

Laure Levi, Avocat at the Brussels Bar, Lallemand & Legros Lawyers, scientific associate at the Institute of European Studies of the University of Brussels

Thomas Livolsi, Lawyer linguist at the French language translation unit of the Court of Justice of the European Union, Luxembourg

Emmanuel Maurage, Head of Administration, European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), Lithuania

Philippe Singer, Avocat at the Strasbourg and Luxembourg Bars, Honorary Director at the European Court of Justice, chief editor of JurisNews European Civil Service, Luxembourg

Haris Tagaras, Professor of European Law at the Panteion University of Athens, Lawyer, Former Judge at the European Union Civil Service Tribunal, Luxembourg

Tomasz Kramer, Lecturer, EIPA Luxembourg – European Centre for Judges and Lawyers, t.kramer@eipa.eu

Topics, subject to change, to be addressed include:

• General overview of substantive and procedural EU civil service law developments
• The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the EU Civil Service – a panel discussion on selected themes
• Misuse of power
• Conflicts of interests
• Selected distinctive features of the status of contractual agents and temporary agents
• Review of legal aspects related to internships
• Other topics to be determined

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