The Chronicle
of Higher Education
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
By AISHA LABI
European court fails to impose fines on Italy for discrimination
against foreign lecturers
The European Union's highest court ruled on Tuesday that Italy had
continued to discriminate against foreign instructors at six state universities following an earlier
ruling that the country had violated E.U.
law in its treatment of foreign lecturers. But the court refused to impose heavy fines on Italy for its actions
because, it said, it didn't have
sufficient information to determine whether
the country has remedied
the problem in the past two years.
The case stems
from the passage, in 1995,
of an Italian law that eliminated
the position of foreign-language assistant
at universities and replaced it with
that of linguistic
associate. As a result of that legislation, the European Court of Justice said in a news release
issued on Tuesday, the European Commission "received several complaints from former foreign-language assistants that, in the conversion to linguistic
associate, their length of service as assistants
had not been
taken into account for the purposes of pay and social security."
After receiving
those complaints, the commission, which is the executive arm of the European Union, began the first
of several legal actions against Italy on behalf of the instructors.
In 2001 the European
Court of Justice ruled in
favor of the commission and agreed
that Italian state universities were discriminating against foreign instructors. The commission
sued again in 2004, arguing that the discrimination persisted and asking the court to levy a daily fine against Italy of 309,750 euros, the equivalent then of about $380,000.
Tuesday's
decision by the Luxembourg-based court agreed that Italy had
remained in breach of E.U. laws guaranteeing
freedom of movement among member states
by workers, regardless of their national origin. But the court declined to impose the daily penalty the commission had sought. It did order the Italian government to pay the costs
of the litigation.
The murky result dismayed the plaintiffs. "We are a bit perplexed by the court's decision, and we regret that
the court did not consider the imposition of the
penalty payment justified," said Katharina
von Schnurbein, a spokeswoman for the commission. "On the one hand,
they say that Italy was
wrong, but on the other hand, they
do not impose the penalty we
asked for." She said that the commission was still examining the ruling and had not yet decided
what to do next.
David Petrie,
a Scotsman who has taught in Italy
for more than two decades and is founder of that
country's Association of Foreign Lecturers, has been
at the center of the long-running dispute. He too was
unhappy with the ruling. "Italy has been condemned
by the court, but a fine has not been
imposed," he said. "The only loss is
to the citizens of Europe, who have
been involved in litigation for 20 years over this issue and will continue to be."
He was referring to
the length of time he has been seeking
equitable treatment of foreign
lecturers at Italian universities.
Noting that the court
had said in its ruling that
it lacked evidence to find
that discrimination had persisted, Mr. Petrie said he
would focus
now on assembling that evidence. "This is not
the end," he said, "but it's a very bad day for the European Union."
A.L.L.S.I.
Associazione Lettori di Lingua Straniera in Italia
Association of Foreign Lecturers in
via
37129
www.allsi.org
TEL & FAX 00 39 045 8003408
gsm
00 39 347 4297324