Dear Mr X,

You recently submitted a complaint to the European Ombudsman against the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) concerning the above issue. You notably argued that the feedback provided to you by Europol was vague and failed to address your concerns, particularly regarding the scores assigned to your qualifications and experience. On 31 October 2024, you also shared additional remarks regarding Europol’s recruitment process, notably as regard the qualifications of the members of the selection committee and its ability to assess applications fairly.

As regards the latter issue, you do not seem to have raised your concerns with Europol. Complainants must first have contacted the EU body concerned before turning to the Ombudsman. This is to give the EU body a chance to address the issue without involving the Ombudsman. Unfortunately, this means that the Ombudsman cannot look into this aspect of your complaint.

As regards the issues raised regarding the feedback provided to you by Europol, after careful analysis of all the information contained in your complaint, we have decided to close the inquiry with the conclusion that there was no maladministration by Europol.

This is because it appears that  Europol has provided you with an adequate explanation of the reasons for its decision. According to the relevant case-law, providing candidates with the marks obtained at a given stage of a selection procedure constitutes an adequate ‘statement of reasons’.[1] In your case, Europol provided you with information about the selection criteria set out in the vacancy notice, the marks obtained by you for each of those criteria, as well your overall mark and the overall pass mark.

When providing you with further feedback on 14 October 2024, Europol also explained further its duty to state reasons in the context of a selection procedure, and provided additional information about the means of redress available to you, in accordance with Europol’s guidelines for recruitment.

As such, it appears that Europol provided you with sufficient feedback and information and acted in line with the relevant applicable rules.

I appreciate this may not be your desired outcome, but I hope you find this information helpful. Thank you for having contacted the European Ombudsman.

Yours sincerely, 

Tina Nilsson
Head of the Case-handling Unit

Strasbourg, 08/11/2024

 

[1] Case C-254/95 P Parliament/Innamorati of  4 July 1996 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A61995CJ0254&qid=1730292622619