EU’s longest-running discrimination case passes to the in-tray of Commissioner Mînzatu

A letter from Gianna Fracassi, Secretary-General of Italy’s largest trade union, FLC CGIL, has brought the high-profile case of the long-running discrimination against non-national university language lecturers(“Lettori”) in Italian universities to the immediate attention of incoming Commissioner for Social Rights and Skills, Quality Jobs and Preparedness, and Executive Commission Vice-President, Roxana Mînzatu. With her appointment to this post, Commissioner Mînzatu joins the long line of commissioners who have handled the still unresolved Lettori case. The involvement of her predecessors in the Social Rights portfolio dates all the way back to the 1980s, when the Commission sided with Spanish Lettore, Pilar Allué, in the reference for preliminary ruling case she had taken against her employer, Univesità degli studi di Venezia. The eventual sentence in favour of Allué was delivered on 30 May 1989.

Pilar Allué Day, a piece published in The European Times, tells the story of how a day which ought to be commemorated as the day on which Lettori won the right to parity of treatment is instead remembered as the starting point from which to measure a discrimination which endures to the present day. It endures in spite of three subsequent clear-cut rulings of the Court of Justice of the European Union(CJEU) in favour of the Lettori. The last of these rulings was the 2006 ruling in Case C-119/04, for non-implementation of which the Commission referred an infringement case to the CJEU in August 2023. A hearing in the case is expected soon.

In her letter, Secretary-General Fracassi recalls the FLC CGIL contacts and fruitful collaboration with Mînzatu’s immediate predecessor, Commissioner Nicholas Schmit.  Working closely with Rome-based Lettori association, Asso.CEL.L, FLC CGIL conducted a nationwide Census , which documented the widespread failure of the Italian universities to implement the CJEU rulings in favour of the Lettori. The Census was influential in the Commission’s decision to progress from the lengthy and ultimately ineffective EU Pilot Procedure -a procedure introduced for the diplomatic resolution of disputes with Member States- and to open infringement proceedings proper against Italy in 2021. Over the subsequent course of the proceedings, and up to the referral of the case to the CJEU, FLC CGIL continued to maintain contact with Commissioner Schmit’s office and to contribute to the infringement file.

Ultimately it is the responsibility of the Member States to ensure that EU law is implemented within their territories. In the context, this is a responsibility which Italy has consistently shirked, leaving it to the individual universities to interpret their obligations to Lettori. This flaw is apparent again in Interministerial Decree n.688 of May 2023, the latest Lettori legislation enacted by Italy to purportedly satisfy EU law. While under the provisions of the decree the central government makes funds available to applicant universities to finance  settlements for reconstruction of Lettori careers, it is left to the discretion of the individual universities to decide firstly if they have a liability to their Lettori and secondly what the extent of that liability is. This has effectively led to a national mayhem, with diverse interpretations across the universities as to the settlements due under EU law.

In the light of the divergent positions on the universities’ liability to the Lettori, Secretary-General Fracassi hones in on the important precedent set by the University of Milan in her letter to Commissioner Mînzatu. At Milan, an agreement negotiated and concluded by local FLC CGIL representative, Sara Carrapa, and funded by  Ministry of Universities monies, awarded the Lettori an uninterrupted reconstruction of career. Fracassi’s legal reasoning and her deductions from the Milan example are worthy of citation:

“Only a few universities have correctly implemented the ruling in Case C-119/04 and in the terms of Law 63 of 05.03.2004. In the context of a consistent and uniform implementation of the CJEU’s jurisprudence, the example of the University of Milan is significant in several respects. Using funds made available by the Ministry of Universities, this university has paid its Lettori the salary differences to achieve full and continuous career reconstruction from the first employment contract signed until today.

Since the working positions of Lettori at other universities are the same as those of their Milanese colleagues, it is clear that the Italian state’s failure to apply to them the general principles laid down by the Court of Justice of the European Union demonstrates, on the one hand, the uncertainty and absolute lack of clarity of the national legal framework of reference and, on the other, highlights the discrimination practised against the Lettori by the plurality of Italian universities.”

In addition to the Lettori case, Italy faces a further trial before the CJEU for its exploitative use of short-term contracts in the educational sector, an abuse against which FLC CGIL has campaigned and on which it has lobbied the Commission. In the press release announcing the referral of this abuse to the CJEU, the Commission states that “contrary to EU law, Italy has not taken effective measures to prevent the abusive use of successive fixed-term employment contracts of administrative, technical, and auxiliary staff in State schools. This breaches EU law on fixed-term employment.”

Linda Armstrong worked as a Lettore at the University of Bologna from 1990 until her retirement in 2020. Her deceased husband, David, also a Lettore, never received the settlement for discriminatory treatment which he was due under EU law. Commenting on the Fracassi letter to Commissioner Mînzatu, Linda said:

“The position that EU law should be applied consistently across the Italian universities is obvious and incontestable. Lettori with working situations and histories identical to those of their Milan colleagues must therefore logically be awarded uninterrupted settlements for reconstruction of career. The March 2004 law, of which the CJEU approved in Case C-119/04 and which Italy has never correctly implemented, establishes that the settlements must be based on the parameter of part-time researcher or more favourable parameters won before the local courts.

Scrutiny of the law also shows that it places no time limits on the period for which reconstruction of career is due. This is how Milan, and indeed, some other universities have interpreted it. In the run-in to what will be the fifth case in the Allué line of litigation,the Commission must be particularly vigilant in the face of attempts by the universities to limit or deny their liability to their Lettori employees. Were this to be allowed to happen, it would result in the absurd situation whereby the infringement proceedings would be turned to the advantage of the member state in breach.” Secretary-General Fracassi’s letter was copied to President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, who has taken a personal interest in the Lettori case over the course of her mandate.