Court annuls ECB withdrawal of short-term contract without notice

The General Court annulled the European Central Bank's decision of 14 March 2024 withdrawing a short-term employment contractEuropa from a former trainee before she took up her appointmentEuropa, and ordered the ECB to pay the costs. The Tenth Chamber held that once the contract had been validly concluded by mutual agreement on 29 January 2024Europa, its ending was subject to the termination conditions in the Conditions of Short-Term Employment (CoSTE) and the Rules for Short-Term Employment (RfSTE)Europa, so the Bank had to give the one-month notice required by Article 16 of the CoSTEEuropa, gross misconduct not being claimed.

The dispute arose after the applicant, a trainee from 15 March 2023 to 14 March 2024 housed in an ECB residence in Frankfurt, accepted a one-year short-term contract running from 15 March 2024 to 13 March 2025. In February 2024 the head of accommodation accused her of repeatedly taking other residents' clothes from the shared laundry room, told her to return the garments by the following day and to vacate the residence by 16 February 2024, later postponed to 20 February 2024, and her mother returned clothing found in her accommodation while she was abroad. On 8 March 2024 the ECB signalled it would withdraw the contract without notice over a breakdown in the relationship of trust, gave five days for written observations, and then withdrew the contract by the contested decision of 14 March 2024, before the applicant took up her appointmentEuropa, for conduct showing a lack of diligence and of awareness for distinguishing her own belongings from other guests' belongings.

On admissibility, the Court reclassified the action as one under Article 270 TFEU and Article 50a of the Statute of the Court of Justice rather than Article 263 TFEU. It accepted excusable error for the missed pre-litigation procedure: the contested decision itself had pointed to Article 263 TFEU, and Article 1(a) of the CoSTE defines a short-term contract employee as a person who has countersigned a contract and taken up appointment, so the applicant could pardonably believe she was still a trainee outside the review-and-grievance procedure. That error relieved her of the obligation to exhaust the procedure under Article 33 of the CoSTE and Part 7 of the RfSTE.

On substance, only the first plea needed deciding. The ECB argued the applicant was still a trainee on 14 March 2024, the RfSTE did not apply to trainees, no employment relationship had yet taken effect, and it could withdraw the contract by analogy with the trust-breakdown principle inherent in EU institutional employment. The Court rejected each limb: ECB staff employment is contractual, mutual consent on all essential elements on 29 January 2024 established the relationshipEuropa, and case-law including Murariu v EIOPA (F-116/14) confirms mutual agreement marks the beginning of the contractual relationship. A contrary reading would leave the weaker contracting party unprotected, and practical arguments fail because Article 2.1.4 of the RfSTE lets Human Resources release an employee from actual duty during the notice period.

For practitioners the holding is operational: an institution bound by a concluded short-term contract cannot sidestep Article 16 of the CoSTE and Article 2.1 of the RfSTE by labelling the ending a pre-effect withdrawal, even one day before the start dateEuropa. A breakdown in the relationship of trust may ground termination but does not dispense with the one-month notice where gross misconduct is not invokedEuropa. The first plea's success ended the case. The legal basis is one closing sentence: the judgment applies Article 16 of the CoSTE and Article 2.1 of the RfSTEEuropa, with Article 134(1) of the Rules of Procedure on costs.