Dear colleagues,

First of all, thank you for inviting me. I am honoured and very pleased to be here, given the important role of this Working Party in the work of my Office.

That makes today’s exchange particularly valuable. In the next few minutes, I will essentially cover three points: issues my Office deals with when it comes to the work of the Council – many of which, I know, are discussed here; transparency more broadly; and the need to reform Regulation 1049.

I will then be glad to take your questions.

The European Ombudsman was created by the Maastricht Treaty and has now been in operation for more than thirty years. Its task is to address maladministration in the work of the Union’s institutions, bodies, offices, and agencies.

Over those three decades, the Union has reached into almost every area of citizens’ lives – from defence and digital policy to climate and migration. The complaints we receive reflect that evolution. They show how the EU administration performs as it takes on each new responsibility and, at the same time, how citizens react.

When I took office in 2025, I set two priorities that are particularly relevant to why I am here today.

The first is to strengthen our working relationships with the EU institutions, so that complaints are resolved quickly and fairly, and good practice spreads. The second is to anticipate how a changing Union will affect our work, and to contribute to the debate on the principles that should guide its administration.

Transparency – and the rules that give it effect – are at the heart of both.

Let me start with the complaints my Office deals with in relation to the Council.

Since the beginning of 2025, we have received 20 complaints against the Council and opened 8 inquiries. As you know, most of these inquiries pertain to transparency issues, notably public access cases which you discuss in this Working Party.

Recent public access cases reflect the very sensitive issues the Council is dealing with, for example the European Peace Facility. One ongoing case concerns the Council’s refusal to disclose 14 documents containing meeting minutes of the Africa working party.  The exceptions invoked by the Council in this latter case pertain to public security and international relations and for half of the documents, to defence and military matters.

But, indeed, I would say that the majority concern public access to legislative documents, where it is only to be expected that the highest transparency standards apply.

Two past cases are worth mentioning: one related to the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the other to the Digital Services Act (DSA).

In the first, a network of journalists sought access to Member States’ initial comments and questions on the legislative proposal regarding the DMA. The Council refused access, arguing that disclosure would seriously undermine its decision-making process.

In the second, a media outlet requested exchanges between the Council’s legal service, its internal working parties, and the European Commission regarding both the DMA and the DSA. Here, the Council invoked exceptions related to legal advice, future court proceedings, and its ongoing decision-making process.

In both cases, my Office found that the Council did not sufficiently demonstrate how disclosure would seriously harm the protected interests, emphasising that timely public access to legislative documents is crucial for citizens to exercise their treaty-based right to participate in the EU’s democratic life.

While the Council ultimately granted access, the time it took meant the documents were no longer useful for public engagement and, therefore, my Office confirmed its finding of maladministration.

In a 2023 own-initiative inquiry on how the Council handles requests for public access to legislative documents, we found that while the Council discloses a large number of legislative documents, the exceptions are often applied too broadly, without providing –  as the case law of the EU Courts requires – concrete evidence of the risks that disclosure would entail. As you know, the Court is particularly demanding on this front.

On this, I am glad to say that the Council reacted in a positive and constructive manner, even if it did not address all our suggestions. It is especially encouraging that the Council has circulated the Ombudsman’s decision to all delegations and to all departments of its General Secretariat. I also note with interest the Council’s efforts to improve its proactive transparency, notably its decision to make further legislative documents publicly available upon circulation. The approach to strengthening legislative transparency endorsed by COREPER in 2020 was a significant step forward and I am of course interested to hear of any more recent initiatives.

Looking ahead, however, I expect complaints to continue in three areas: legislative documents marked as LIMITE while discussions are ongoing; inadequate recording or disclosure of Member States’ positions; and the lack of transparency of trilogues.

As regards this last point, I am currently examining a complaint about redactions in trilogue documents relating to the proposed Green Claims Directive.

I think we can all agree that democratic scrutiny demands high standards of transparency. Citizens should be able to understand the positions their governments take as co-legislators at Union level.

At the same time, I recognise that negotiations need room. Every legislative procedure has its own dynamics, shaped by the sector concerned and by wider balances of interest. Effective decision-making requires a degree of flexibility.

Yet, when citizens know what their governments defend in the Council, they do more than follow the Union – they take part in it.

Transparency is not incidental to decision-making. It is part and parcel of it, as the democratic principle requires.

That is precisely why positive developments deserve to be highlighted.

I was very pleased that the interinstitutional EU Law Tracker – a joint project of the Council, the Parliament, and the Commission – received the Excellence in Open Administration prize in my Office’s 2026 Award for Good Administration. In one place, it shows citizens where each proposal under the ordinary legislative procedure stands, whether and when trilogues have taken place, and which documents are available from all three institutions.

I also welcome the Council’s readiness to engage with our findings. I will shortly be reporting to the European Parliament that, in its 2025 follow-up, the Council has accepted 100% of my Office’s suggestions.

That matters – and not only for the effectiveness of my Office. When an institution acts on a finding, it shows citizens that they have been heard: that their problem has been understood, and that the administration is willing to correct course and adapt to their expectations and their rights.

A complaint is an act of trust – in the Ombudsman, but even more so in the system as a whole.

Much of what I have described so far comes down to a simple and almost obvious expectation. When important decisions are taken, the public wants to know who was at the table, what evidence was considered, and on whose behalf. Transparency ensures that law is made not only for citizens but, as far as possible, with them. That is what ultimately gives law-making its legitimacy.

For the most part, I believe the EU institutions do a good job of providing citizens with information. But the system set up in 2001 is showing cracks – and those cracks are widening.

Regulation 1049 was written for a world of paper files and physical archives. Today, negotiations may take place by text message; governance runs on data flows that leave no paper trail; and some decisions are even shaped by algorithms. There is no going back to paper.

The question, therefore, is whether a framework built a quarter of a century ago can still deliver accountability in a digital age.

Over the years, the Court of Justice of the EU and the European Ombudsman have developed a substantial body of case law and “ombudsprudence” – stretching a pre-digital legislative text to fit present realities: from what counts as a ‘document’ to where the limits of each exception lie.

Just last week, at an Interinstitutional Seminar on Public Access to Documents hosted by the Council, representatives from across the EU administration heard a General Court judge and me explain how the cases that come before us give substance to the provisions of the Regulation.

The Regulation has proved resilient. But resilience is not the same as effectiveness. Three problems stand out.

The first is clarity. The system lacks it – for citizens and institutions alike. Requests are too often handled through the lens of risk management. Citizens must cite court judgments, Ombudsman findings and internal guidelines – which sometimes change –  simply to make their case. No one should need to become an expert in EU law to obtain a document they are entitled to see – nor be forced to complain to my Office or go to the General Court, which can be demanding and complex routes.

The second is the use of exceptions. They exist for good reasons, and a Union that has lived through financial crisis, migration pressures, a pandemic, and now war at close quarters has real interests to protect. But exceptions are frequently read too broadly, on the basis of vague and abstract reasoning –  including arguments the Court has already rejected, such as the risk of external pressure or public misinterpretation.

And the third is time. People now expect information at the touch of a button. Up to six weeks for an initial request, and up to six more for a confirmatory application, are timeframes many citizens simply cannot understand. And yet some institutions have real trouble adhering to those timelines, at times overshooting them by months, if not years.

We need clearer, more complete and more modern rules – rules that reflect today’s technology and how decisions are actually taken, and that ensure that proactive transparency is fully realised, and realised in a timely way. Legal clarity and predictability serve citizens. They also serve those who apply the rules – including this Working Party.

I know that some are reluctant to reopen the Regulation. Some fear that this could lead to heavier obligations; others fear a system less transparent than today’s. These concerns are understandable. But they underestimate the rising cost of standing still.

I believe, nonetheless, that the time for this debate has come. We should not fear it. We should embrace the chance to build a better transparency framework – one with citizens and their right to know at its centre.

Before I close, a word on the European Network of Ombudsman. My Office is not alone in promoting good administration across the European Union.

National and regional ombudsmen play an essential role in each of your Member States, and strengthening our cooperation through the Network is one of my priorities.

As the Network marks its 30th anniversary this year, we will publish a report on three decades of joint work for good administration across the Union. It shows that ombudsmen, though they cannot issue binding decisions, have helped secure respect for rights and duties under EU law – intervening across its full spectrum and demonstrating how directly it shapes citizens’ daily lives.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I see today´s meeting as an opportunity to build on a culture of open, transparent, and pragmatic cooperation between the Council and my Office.

Ultimately, transparency is about more than documents, procedures or rules. It is about trust – and about ensuring that citizens can see how decisions that affect their lives are made.

I hope we can continue to work together to strengthen that trust, and to build a transparency framework that meets the realities of today while keeping citizens and their right to know at its centre.

I look forward to your questions and to the discussion.

Thank you.