Ombudsman’s work in 2022: access to documents, conflicts of interest and other areas

The Ombudsman’s work in 2022 improved administrative practices, promoted accountability and improved the accessibility of documents for EU citizens, argue MEPs in an annual report.

In their annual report on the activities of the European Ombudsman, MEPs praised the Ombudsman’s Office for promoting high accountability and transparency standards for the EU’s administration. The report was adopted by the European Parliament with 543 votes in favour, 12 against and 64 abstentions.

MEPs underline that the participation of citizens in EU decision-making is important for its legitimacy, and appreciate the Ombudsman’s commitment to foster accountability in EU decision-making, especially in the area of environmental decisions. In its strategic work in 2022, the Ombudsman opened new strategic inquires on ethical issues such as conflicts of interest, ‘revolving doors’, accountability in decision making, access to documents, and fundamental rights.

‘Revolving doors’ and conflicts of interest in focus

In 2022, the Ombudsman continued to investigate how the EU administration deals with so-called ‘revolving doors’ situations of staff moving from EU institutions to the private sector. They also continued a strategic inquiry into how the Commission handles such situations, and an own-initiative inquiry into how the European Central Bank manages them, asking for stricter rules. MEPs encourage the Ombudsman to continue to monitor the Commission’s handling of such cases.

In the past year, the largest percentage of the Ombudsman’s inquiries concerned the Commission, whose administrative activities receive considerable public attention. The Ombudsman opened an own-initiative inquiry to assess how the Commission ensures that its interactions with tobacco industry representatives are transparent, and worked to improve transparency in environmental information related to decision-making. MEPs also underline the importance of thoroughly assessing the conflicts of interest of appointed experts, and ask the Commission to follow the Ombudsman’s suggestions of adopting stronger rules to prevent conflicts of interest.

MEPs welcome transparency-related inquiries

Following the Ombudsman’s inquiry into the Commission’s handling of text messages exchanged between the Commission President and the CEO of a pharmaceutical company on purchasing COVID-19 vaccines, MEPs welcome the resulting recommendations on handling work-related text and instant messages. They also stress that EU institutions must fully comply with these recommendations in order to bring the practices of the EU administration into line with modern communication methods, and find that the failure to subsequently find such text messages amounts to maladministration, as did the Ombudsman.

On public access to documents, MEPs urge the European Commission to improve administrative practices so that it respects the timelines set out by legislators and to demonstrate that transparency is the rule in handling document access requests. They also support the Ombudsman’s call for the Commission to set up a new and separate complaint-handling portal for alleged human rights abuses, and urge the Commission to improve the transparency of documents related to national plans under the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), possibly by establishing a public portal.

In 2022, the Ombudsman also investigated the monitoring of fundamental rights compliance at the Croatian border, and asked European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) to improve its accountability after conducting a strategic inquiry into its fundamental rights compliance. MEPs urge Frontex to adequately follow up with the Ombudsman’s recommendations.

Quote

Rapporteur Peter Jahr (EPP, DE) said: ‘’I congratulate the Ombudsman for her work and her good cooperation with the Petitions Committee. I think the Ombudsman uses the own-initiative inquiries to an appropriate extent. Her inquiries cover a wide field of topics. Above all, the investigation into the relevance of short messages is of interest for everyone.”

Background

The most common issues covered by the Ombudsman’s inquiries closed in 2022 were transparency and accountability (access to information and documents) (32 %), culture of service (20 %) and respect for fundamental rights (15 %).