Médiateur européen

The European Ombudsman, Mr Jacob Söderman, has reached an important stage in his inquiry into late payment by the European Commission, with the Commission agreeing this week to make publicly available a report that it had commissioned into the matter. In addition, the report of an ad hoc group set up within the financial units network of the Commission to tackle the problem of late payment will also be published.

The Ombudsman launched his inquiry in December 1999 after receiving an increasing number of complaints about the problem of late payment. For example in complaints to the Ombudsman, an expert claimed to have waited over seven and a half months for payment of expenses and to have been told that "delays are inherent in the system"; a Brussels-based policy centre claimed that an invoice was not paid for over 16 months and a company waited nine months for payment before approaching the Ombudsman because of concern that a complaint might jeopardise its future relations with the Commission.

In response to the Ombudsman's letter opening the inquiry, the Commission sent a copy of a report that it had commissioned from Grant Thornton into the matter. The report, dated September 1998, was originally marked as confidential. However, following the Ombudsman's request, the Commission has agreed this week to make the report publicly available on its Website. It will also make the report of an ad hoc group set up within its financial units network available when it sends its definitive opinion to the Ombudsman.

The full correspondence between the Ombudsman and the Commission regarding this inquiry is available in 11 languages on the Ombudsman's Website at:

http://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/cases/correspondence.faces/en/3532/html.bookmark

The Website will be regularly updated with new information regarding the inquiry in the coming weeks. The Ombudsman has already received many observations from organisations and from the general public regarding late payment. Anyone who wishes to make observations relevant to the inquiry should send these directly to the Ombudsman. Although the inquiry will not deal with individual cases of late payment, these could be the subject of separate complaints to the Ombudsman.

For further information, please call Ian Harden, head of legal department, tel. + 33 (0) 3 8817 2384.