EU Commission U-turn on UK lecturers’ compensation outrages union

 BRUSSELS – The European Commission has reversed itself cravenly on efforts to force Italy to pay compensation due to hundreds of foreign university lecturers for decades of discrimination, accepting a mendacious statement by the Italian Government that Rome has paid all compensation due, the ALLSI foreign lecturers union says.

 EU Executive Vice Commissioner Roxana Minzatu had  said earlier this year she was sending a complaint to the Court of Justice of the European Union asking for infringement proceedings against Italy for dragging its feet for years on compensating the lettori from Britain and other countries. Commissioner Minzatu, from Roumania, has responsibility for Social RIghts and Skills, Quality Jobs and Preparedness.

 However Ms Minzatu subsequently announced her office had rescinded the request to the CJEU on the spurious ground that  “the grievances raised in the case had been resolved.”  

 The chair of the ALLSI trade union, David Petrie, a 73-year-old Scotsman, commented that  “It is absolutely impossible to give any credence at all to this statement” by the Commission.

 The European Court of Justice has previously ruled, as many as sixtimes,in 1989, 1993, 1997, 2001, 2006 and 2008,finding breaches by Italy of EU law that prohibit illegitimate discrimination based on nationality, concerning equal treatment , equal and fair wages and pensions under EU single market rules.

 In 2011 following protests by the lettori and in the European Parliament the Commission opened what it calls a Pilot scheme in order to find a faster negotiated solution. This failed to produce any useful result and 12 years later the Commission, on July 14,2023, decided to take Italy back to the ECJ and ask the Court, case C-519/23 to declare that the Italian Republic has failed to fulfil the obligations imposed by Article 45 TFEU, not having reconstructed the former assistants’ careers in order to guarantee the economic treatment due to them and the corresponding payment of arrears. [1

 However last week, on July 22,Mario Nava, the Director General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, wrote to Mr Petrie, abandoning the lawsuit and saying:“In the light of the information received and statements made by the Italian authorities, the Commission considered that the Court case could not be further pursued since the grievances raised in the application to the Court in case C-519/23 had been resolved. In the light of the information received and statements made by the Italian authorities, the Commission considered that the Court case could not be further pursued since the grievances raised in the application to the Court in case C-519/23 had been resolved and the application has to be withdrawn from the Court at the earliest possible moment. The relevant Commission decision was made on 17 July 2025. Please be informed that your complaint registered under number CPLT(2011)00960 is hereby closed.”

 Sig. Nava, himself an Italian, added unctuously that “Due to the urgency to withdraw, which can be identified as exceptional circumstances in this case, in accordance with point 10 of Annex 1 to Communication ‘EU Law: Better Results through Better Application’ (OJ C 18, 19.1.2017, p. 10), the complainants could not be informed about the decision to withdraw in advance.!

 Mr Petrie said “It is absolutely impossible to give any credence to this statement at all. On March 31accompanied by my lawyer, Prof. Avv. Lorenzo Picotti, I met with Francesco Corti a member of Roxana Mînzatu’s cabinet in their office in Brussels with documented evidence of pay slips, pension slips and tax returns of lettori still awaiting compensation.”

 Reacting to Mr Navo’s volte face, ALLSI wrote to Ursula von der Leyen's  head of legal services Mr Daniel Calleja-Crespo July 23,saying, “there is good reason to conclude that Italy is breaching the principle of sincere cooperation enshrined in Article 4(3) of the Treaty” and asking him to put a stay on the Commission’s hasty and thoroughly unjustifiable withdrawal from the Court case C-519/23.

 ALLSI’s respected lawyer Prof.Avv. Lorenzo Picotti said "The decision is incomprehensible and should also be criticised on legal grounds. The Commission only takes into account the arguments put forward by the Italian Government, it does not consider evidence provided by ALLSI and other lecturers, or  or show that any ‘useful result’has been demonstrated at all.”

 “Therefore, Italy cannot be said to have fulfilled its obligations to fully implement European Union law and the judgments of the Court of Justice, in particular that of 18 July 2006, C-119/04. We are considering what steps to take in response to this unfair decision, including appeals to the European Court of Human Rights.”

 jp