C-61/85

That allowance is provided for under Article On entering the service of the Commission 69 of the Staff Regulations of Officials, and Mrs Urhausen found that she was not its payment is subject to the conditions set granted the allowance in question, and on out in Article 4 (1) (a) of Annex VII. 31 August 1984 she submitted a request for According to that provision the allowance is its payment. The Commission did not reply paid to officials who (a) have never been to her request, and she therefore submitted nationals of the State in whose territory the a complaint against that implied rejection place where they are employed is situated; on 7 November 1984. The Commission (b) during the five years ending six months rejected the complaint by a decision of 13 before they entered the service did not December. She has therefore brought these habitually reside or carry on their main proceedings in which she seeks, inter alia, occupation within the European territory of the annulment of that decision. that State.

3. There is no dispute between the parties 2. Mrs Urhausen is and has always been a with regard to the facts of the case, and it is German national. She was born in March clear that the applicant meets the first of the 1956 of a German father and a Luxem- two conditions laid down by the Staff bourgish mother in Munich, where she lived Regulations for the grant of the allowance. until the age of nine, when her parents were The dispute thus concerns the second divorced. She then moved to the Grand condition. In other words, it must be Duchy of Luxembourg with her mother and determined whether Mrs Urhausen lived there until July 1975, completing her 'habitually resided or carried on her main secondary schooling there. occupation' in the Grand Duchy of

4. The action is unfounded. As the Court has frequently held, the expatriation Her decision to undertake further studies in allowance is intended to 'compensate Innsbruck was motivated by that city's officials for the extra expense and incon­ relative proximity to Munich and thus by venience of taking up employment with the her intention to maintain her habitual Communities and being thereby obliged to residence in Munich. Nor, she says, does change their residence' (judgments of 20 her marriage with a Luxembourg national February 1975 in Case 21/74 Airola v indicate the contrary, since their matri­ Commission [1975] ECR 221 at paragraph monial home was in Munich. 8; 16 October 1980 in Case 147/79 Hoch- strass v Court of Justice [1980] ECR 3005 at paragraph 12; 13 November 1986 in Case 330/85 Richter v Commission [1986] ECR 3439 at p. 3445, paragraph 6). That principle is quite clear and entirely applicable to the case now before us. Her periods of employment in Luxembourg are also insignificant, she argues. Her few assignments as a substitute teacher were obtained through contacts of her mother (illegally, moreover, since she was a foreign national) and certainly cannot be regarded as her 'main occupation'. Her work at the As I have already stated, the applicant was Commission is irrelevant for two reasons: born of a Luxembourgish mother and lived first of all, with regard to her 'training in Luxembourg from the age of nine until period' at the Commission, the last phrase her adulthood, when she went to Innsbruck of Article 4 (2) (a) provides that work done to study languages; subsequently she spent

As for the other two-thirds of the period in question, we know that Mrs Urhausen taught in a school in Luxembourg for about six months; for our purposes it is not relevant whether she was lawfully given such employment and whether the number 5. As I have already pointed out, the of lessons which she taught was in fact very applicant puts forward two pieces of small. Furthermore, in November 1980 the evidence in support of her argument: the applicant requested and obtained the apartment she owns in Munich and the inclusion of her name on the list of court certificate of residence issued by the experts, a qualification which obliged her to municipal authorities there. Let me say right be available in Luxembourg. From the away that the second is of little or no second half of 1981 until April 1984 she weight. Regardless of what counsel for the worked on a free-lance basis for the applicant may have said, it is clear that the Commission. It is true that that work could Aufenthaltsbescheinigung simply reproduces be done at home, but it is equally beyond the information contained in the register of dispute that it required the applicant to be inhabitants, and as a rule the correctness of in contact with Luxembourg continuously. that information is not checked.

OPINION OF MR MANCINI —CASE 61/85

The first argument is equally fragile. The Luxembourg and gave the Commission its fact that one is the owner of property in no address when Mrs Urhausen was appointed way implies that one lives in the place where to a post there. In view of the fact that Mrs that property is situated, especially where a Urhausen's mother owns a house in third party (in our case, the applicant's Luxembourg, it is clear that the couple grandfather) has the use of that property. It would not have needed to rent an may be added that, as the application itself appartment in Luxembourg if they had not shows, Mrs Urhausen and her husband been obliged to live there on a continuous rented an apartment in the city of basis.