The European Ombudsman, Mr Jacob Söderman, has given the European Commission until 30 June 2000 to respond to his Draft Recommendation that it "should adopt an internal procedure to ensure that cases of alleged abuse of children within its crèches are dealt with in an effective, transparent and timely way". The Ombudsman states that the Commission should adopt such a procedure before 31 July 2000.
The Ombudsman's Draft Recommendation follows a complaint that he received from the parents of children attending the Early Childhood Centre Clovis in Brussels. The parents complained that the Commission failed to act in an effective, transparent and timely way after an alleged case of paedophilia at the crèche was reported. The parents claim that the European Commission failed to properly supervise the company that it had contracted to run the crèche and failed to inform parents of the paedophile investigation.
Despite the alleged abuse having been reported to the Director of the crèche at the end of May 1997 and to the European Commission at the beginning of June 1997, the Commission only informed the parents of children attending the crèche in October 1997, after the case had already been made public.
Although the Commission stated in its opinion to the Ombudsman that it does envisage setting up an internal procedure for dealing with such cases, the complainants regret that over two years after the case came to light, no such procedure is in place. The Ombudsman was informed in November 1999 that the adoption of an internal procedure was imminent. However, further inquiries by the Ombudsman show that no significant progress has been made since then.
The Commission has however taken steps to ensure that the new contractor, who will take charge of running the crèche from August 2000, will be properly supervised with improvements in both internal and external control procedures now in place. The Ombudsman trusts that the Commission will ensure that these additional tasks are carried out properly and efficiently.
For further information, please call Mr Alessandro Del Bon, Legal Officer, tel. +33 (0)3 88 17 23 82.