The complaint to the European Investment Bank 1. The complainant is a member of staff at the European Investment Bank (the EIB). He raised concerns with the EIB about certain agreements it had concluded for its staff with healthcare providers in Luxembourg. One agreement was with hospitals and another with doctors and dentists. Under both agreements, healthcare providers can invoice a percentage s...

Sehr geehrter Herr X, Sie haben sich am 7. Juni 2019 mit einer Beschwerde gegen die Europäische Bankenaufsichtsbehörde (EBA) an die Europäische Bürgerbeauftragte gewandt. Ihre Beschwerde betrifft in erster Linie die Entscheidung der EBA, keine Untersuchung hinsichtlich der Weigerung der X, Ihnen einen Betrag in Höhe von EUR 159.000,00 zu erstatten, zu eröffnen. Darüber hinaus scheinen Sie damit un...

Dear Mr X, On 3 January 2019, you submitted a complaint to the European Ombudsman against the European Commission concerning the above issue. The Ombudsman has asked me to deal with your complaint and reply to you on her behalf. After a careful analysis of all the information you provided with your complaint, we have decided to close the inquiry with the following conclusion: The information and e...

The case concerned a request for public access to an audit report concerning the Commission’s financial system. The Commission had granted partial access to the report, arguing that granting full access would leave it open to cyber-attacks. The complainant considered that the redactions made by the Commission were too restrictive.

The Ombudsman inspected the requested documents and found that the Commission had granted appropriate partial access.

The case concerned a request by a non-governmental organisation to the General Secretariat of the Council of the EU (GSC) to make public information about all meetings held between interest representatives and the President of the European Council, as well as members of his private office (‘cabinet’).

The General Secretariat of the Council replied to the complainant that while it is under no legal obligation to maintain a record of the meetings of the President or the cabinet members with external stakeholders, it is committed to publishing relevant information about meetings in a structured and proactive manner.

During the inquiry, the Ombudsman found that information on the meetings held by European Council President Tusk with interest representatives is made public. However, no information is available about any meetings that may take place between members of the President’s cabinet and interest representatives.

The Ombudsman closed the inquiry making several suggestions aimed at improving the information that the GSC makes public.

Background to the complaint 1. The complainant is a research organisation created by charter with four signatories. 2. In November 2018, it participated in the call for proposals under EuropeAid/159965/DD/ACT/Kenya - FED/2017/039-257 - Ending Drought Emergencies: Support to Resilient Livelihoods and Drought Risk Management. 3. The call eligibility guidelines specified that lead applicants should b...

Dear Ms X, On 6 May 2019, you submitted a complaint[1] to my Office against the European Commission concerning its failure to deal adequately with your infringement complaint (CHAP(2017)03487) against the Netherlands. Your infringement complaint to the Commission concerned an alleged breach of Council Directive 93/42/EC on medical devices (the Medical Devices Directive). You contend, among other t...

The case concerned a procurement procedure for an EU funded contract, managed by the EU Delegation in Bolivia. The Delegation informed the complainant that it had been awarded the contract. The complainant was also told that, if information received during the mandatory seven-day standstill period justified a more detailed examination of the tenders, the complainant would be immediately notified. Almost one month later, the Delegation informed the complainant that it had decided to award the contract to another tenderer.  

The Ombudsman found that the Delegation had not committed maladministration in evaluating a tender that had originally been rejected. However, the Delegation had failed to comply with its obligation to inform the complainant immediately that it had received information during the standstill period that could have an impact on the award of the contract. She therefore proposed to the Commission that the Delegation apologise to the complainant and compensate it for time and resources spent, after the standstill period, on preparing supporting documents.

The Commission accepted the Ombudsman´s proposal for a solution. The Ombudsman therefore closed the inquiry.

The complaint concerned the European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA) refusal to grant public access to declarations of interest of EFSA’s middle management staff. More generally, the Ombudsman also examined how EFSA processes requests for public access to documents.

The complainant requested public access to the declarations of interest of EFSA’s operational management, but was granted access only to the declarations of the Executive Director and four Heads of Department, which were already published on EFSA’s website.

In the course of the inquiry, EFSA adopted a new policy, making publicly available the declarations of interest of its entire operational management. The Ombudsman proposed that EFSA should also make public the declarations of interest of its Chief Scientist, Senior Science Coordinator and Senior Policy Adviser. EFSA agreed to act on this proposal.

In her inquiry, the Ombudsman also confirmed that EFSA has an appropriate system in place to process requests for access to documents.

The Ombudsman closed the inquiry with the conclusion that a solution had been accepted and implemented by EFSA.

The complainant, a Dutch foundation, was a partner on a project funded by the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) under the EU’s Lifelong Learning Programme for education and training. The complainant complained to the Ombudsman after EACEA decided to recover some of the funding based on an auditor’s report. The report had noted that the foundation had wrongly claimed costs related to a subcontract with a consultancy owned by the complainant.

The Ombudsman inquired into the issues. She found that the EACEA had given adequate explanations and sufficient opportunities to the complainant to submit detailed supporting documents that could have enabled it to re-consider its position on this matter.

Since the complainant did not submit the documents requested, the EACEA’s decisions to recover the costs was reasonable.

The Ombudsman closed the inquiry with a finding of no maladministration.