Abuse of fixed-term work in public employment: what changes after the CJEU's Obadal judgment

The chaining of fixed-term contracts in the public administration has been, for years, one of the most heavily litigated areas of Spanish employment law. A recent judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union —the Obadal case— has again called into question the solutions Spanish courts had been applying, and has reopened the debate on how that abuse must be remedied. It is worth understanding what the Court decided and whom it affects.

The problem: abusive use of fixed-term work in the public sector

Directive 1999/70/EC, which gave effect to the European Framework Agreement on fixed-term work, requires Member States to prevent and penalise the abusive use of successive fixed-term contracts. In the Spanish public sector, however, stringing together interim appointments and fixed-term contracts over years —sometimes more than a decade— has been widespread. The courts' answer was to develop the figure of the indefinido no fijo, a worker who does not acquire permanent status but whose relationship continues until the post is filled through the proper procedure, with capped compensation on termination.

What the Obadal judgment holds

In its judgment of 14 April 2026, delivered by the Grand Chamber in Case C-418/24, Obadal (ECLI:EU:C:2026:291), the Court of Justice of the European Union held that the measures Spain had been applying against the abuse of fixed-term work in the public sector are insufficient to penalise it effectively. The Court examined the usual solutions one by one —the indefinido no fijo status, capped compensation on termination and the holding of selection procedures— and found that, neither individually nor taken together, do they adequately remedy or deter the abuse as the Directive requires. Its scope should be stated precisely: the Framework Agreement does not require the automatic conversion of a fixed-term relationship into a permanent one, but where national law prohibits that conversion it does require some other genuinely effective measure — and the Spanish ones, the Court concludes, are not.

Compensation: a set amount per year is not enough

The judgment also lays down an important criterion on the amount of the remedy. Setting compensation is not a matter of mechanically applying a number of days per year of service: the Court requires all the circumstances of the case to be taken into account, including, under paragraph 68, the nature of the duties performed and the number and cumulative duration of the contracts, together with the economic advantages the worker would have obtained had the abuse not occurred and the damage flowing from the situation of uncertainty. The remedy, in short, must be full and matched to the actual harm, not a uniformly capped figure.

A developing picture

The reference for a preliminary ruling arose precisely from the divergent way in which Spanish courts had been applying the earlier case-law, so domestic doctrine now has to be reordered in the light of this judgment. This is therefore a fast-moving area, in which each situation —the type of appointment, its duration, the employing administration and the moment of termination— calls for individual analysis against the most recent case-law. What is clear is that answers previously taken for granted no longer hold without qualification.

How we can help with abusive fixed-term public employment at RCM Legal

There are two situations worth reviewing: the public employee with a long succession of temporary appointments who does not know whether they can claim stability or higher compensation, and the person dismissed with capped compensation which, in the light of Obadal, may have fallen short. The difficulty lies in fitting each case into a body of doctrine that is being redefined, and in evidencing the real extent of the harm suffered.

At RCM Legal we analyse fixed-term relationships in public employment and claim, where appropriate, the stability or the reparation that follows from European and Spanish Supreme Court case-law. As employment lawyers in Murcia, if you have accumulated fixed-term contracts with the administration or were dismissed after years as an interim appointee, tell us about your situation and we will assess your options.