Abstract

Assessment of the Chairman of the Complaints Board
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Regarding the merits,
6. For enrolments in the European Schools of Brussels after the beginning of the school year, Article 12.1 of the PE 2022-2023 provides that:
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8. The enrolment applications submitted after the beginning of the school year are allowed restrictively, under three cumulative conditions; if one of the conditions is not met, it is irrelevant whether the other two are met or not.
It is undisputable that at least one of the cumulative conditions laid down in Article 12.1 of the PE 2022-2023 is not fulfilled insofar as the pupil’s legal representatives have both taken up their posts with the European Union institutions for much more than 3 months before January 2023, one of them is not settled outside Belgium and the other, residing outside Belgium, will not be settling in Brussels on a long-term basis in the context of a change to the family situation." (article 12.1 c).

9. The disputed decision is clearly and sufficiently reasoned.
There is indeed no element allowing the rules on mid-year enrolment to be waived.
If the family is separated, it is the result of the applicants’ decisions.
[...] will have the right to join the EEB 2 for the next school year if she wishes and provided that her parents submit an enrolment application in respect of the PE 2023-2024.
[...] has a place in her school in Helsinki, where she can continue her schooling in Finnish. There is no educational need for her to change for the spring term to another school, taking indeed the risk to destabilize her studies and her motivation for learning. The applicants do not explain why the return to Helsinki would have a negative impact and would not be the best interest of their daughter. This return to Helsinki is just the normal step after a semester abroad in the context of the S5 exchange program.
Finally, the rules of the PE are the same for all the parents submitting an enrolment application and must be applied equally to all of them. To do exceptions for some linguistic sections less crowded would amount to establishing a practice based on discrimination according to the language of pupils applying for enrolment – which is against one of the fundamental principles presiding the legal system of the European schools.

10. The appeal must therefore be dismissed as unfounded.