The complaint concerns an alleged conflict of interest involving the Commissioner for Agriculture. The complainant, an organisation representing Polish farmers, had lodged an infringement complaint concerning Polish agricultural legislation. The complainant subsequently alerted the European Commission to the fact that the brother of the Commissioner for Agriculture was among the members of the Polish Parliament who had proposed the legislation at issue. As the Commission failed to deal with these concerns, the complainant turned to the Ombudsman.

The Ombudsman found that the manner in which the Commission assessed the conflict of interest was flawed. Specifically, it had failed to take into account the fact that the Commissioner’s relationship with one of the legislation proposers could have influenced, or been perceived to influence, negatively the Commission’s independence in assessing the infringement complaint in question.

The Ombudsman made a suggestion for improvement to address this, and urged the Commission to review its decision-making on the infringement complaint under the supervision of another commissioner. As the Ombudsman also identified procedural shortcomings in the case, she made a second suggestion for improvement to prevent similar situations from occurring in the future.

The Ombudsman closed the inquiry, asking the Commission to report back on the actions it has taken to address her suggestions.