Italy’s school administration staff have been left exposed to an endless loop of temporary contracts, and Europe’s top court has now said that has to change. In a ruling issued in mid-May under case number C-155/25, the European Court of Justice found that Rome’s legal framework fails to protect these workers β known collectively as PAS (Personale Amministrativo, Tecnico ed Ausiliario) β from being strung along indefinitely.
The judges’ central complaint: Italian law sets no ceiling on how long someone in this role can be
What makes this ruling particularly striking is the court’s assessment of Italy’s own conversion rules. A provision requiring at least two years of professional experience before school support staff can be moved into permanent civil service positions was supposed to be a pathway to stability. In practice, the judges found, it operates as the opposite: a built-in incentive for the employer to keep people on short, renewable contracts for years. Because permanent appointment is locked behind that time threshold, the system creates room for repeated extensions while offering workers neither legal certainty nor meaningful protection against abuse.
The decision now obliges Italy to bring its national rules into line with European jurisprudence. Labour law specialists following the case anticipate that meaningful reform of the country’s education sector will be required β changes that would need to dismantle the structural bias toward precarious employment and close the gap between how temporary and permanent public-sector staff are treated. For the PAS workforce, the ruling could mark the beginning of a shift away from a system that has, until now, rewarded prolonged instability over secure employment.
