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The European Ombudsman

Editorial

It is a great pleasure for me to welcome you to my website! The aim of the site is to give you clear, succinct, and easy-to-understand information on what the European Ombudsman can do for you. It offers an overview of what the Ombudsman has achieved to date, and explains how to lodge a complaint.

The website also contains an interactive guide to help you identify the most appropriate body to turn to with your complaint. This service is proving particularly useful for citizens, businesses, and other organisations throughout Europe. In the first six months of 2009, for instance, more than 15 000 people sought and received advice from the Ombudsman through the interactive guide.

The website is regularly updated with case summaries, press releases, details of upcoming events and publications. In April, we added our Overview 2008 in 23 languages to provide a succinct account of the Ombudsman's work in 2008. The full Annual Report is also now available in all 23 languages.

I hope the site will continue to prove a valuable resource for all those who follow the Ombudsman's work. Enjoy visiting it and please feel free to contact me with any feedback or suggestions that you wish to make.

All the best,

P. Nikiforos Diamandouros

Meeting with members of the Network of the Estonian Nonprofit Organizations and journalists

Calendar of activities

Upcoming events

27 Nov 2009: Conference on human dignity and the role of the administrative judge
01 Dec 2009: The European Ombudsman - supervising the EIB
14 Dec 2009: Third Meeting of the Association of Mediterranean Ombudsmen

More upcoming events...

Past events

20 Nov 2009: Presentation by Mr Marc Jaeger, President of the European Court of First Instance, to the Legal Department of the European Ombudsman
17 Nov 2009: Meeting with the Petitions Committee of Rheinland-Phalz, Germany
12 Nov 2009: Presentation of the European Ombudsman's Annual Report for 2008 to the Plenary of the European Parliament

All past events...

The European Ombudsman - supervising the EIB

Cartoon

The European Ombudsman invites you to a workshop "The Ombudsman - supervising the European Investment Bank" on 1 December 2009 in Brussels.

For further information, please click here.

At a glance

The European Ombudsman investigates complaints about maladministration in the institutions and bodies of the European Union.

If you are a citizen of a Member State of the Union or reside in a Member State, you can make a complaint to the European Ombudsman. Businesses, associations or other bodies with a registered office in the Union may also complain to the Ombudsman.

Who can help you?

Interactive guide

Summaries of cases

The Commission's handling of a grant agreement (Added on: 23 November 2009)

Summary of decision on complaint 870/2007/TN (confidential) against the European Commission

The complaint concerned the Commission's handling of a grant agreement. The complainant alleged that the agreement had not been properly handled, since the Commission had: (i) decided to freeze the implementation of the project; (ii) imposed obligations that were not provided for in the grant agreement; (iii) failed to approve, in a timely manner, a revised version of the technical annex to the agreement; and (iv) held meetings with the other beneficiaries but refused to meet the co-ordinator, despite the fact that the co-ordinator was the Commission's sole contact point.

The Ombudsman found that the Commission had not "frozen" the implementation of the project, but that it had taken a reasonable decision to revise the project in order to deal with certain problems.

Press releases

18 November 2009: Ombudsman publishes decision on complaint by Intel

The European Ombudsman, P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, has published a non-confidential version of his decision on a complaint by micro-chip producer Intel against the European Commission. The complaint concerned alleged procedural errors by the Commission during an anti-trust investigation of Intel. The Ombudsman found maladministration on the grounds that the Commission failed to make a proper note of a meeting with computer manufacturer Dell relating to the Intel investigation.

Mr Diamandouros commented "I hope that my decision in this case will help the Commission to improve its administrative procedures by ensuring that its future anti-trust investigations are fully documented."