The European Ombudsman, Mr Jacob Söderman, has given the European Commission until 31 October 2000 to inform him of concrete measures taken regarding age limits in EU recruitment procedures. The Ombudsman's recommendation comes over two years after the Commission informed him that it would be bringing an end to the age-discrimination. Complaints about age limits continue to be sent to the Ombudsman from citizens who have been excluded from recruitment competitions. The Ombudsman has recommended that:

The Commission should organise an inter-institutional meeting in order to consider a common inter-institutional agreement to abolish age limits as expressed in its opinion to the Ombudsman on 2 March 1998.

Due to the large number of complaints received regarding the issue of age limits, the Ombudsman had launched an own initiative inquiry in 1997 (626/97/BB) into the use of age limits for recruitment. During the inquiry, both the Commission and the Parliament had decided to raise their age limits to 45 years. In March 1998, the Commission had informed the Ombudsman that it had decided on a policy principle to abolish age limits in its recruitment policy and that it had decided to put this decision into practice with other institutions by reaching a common inter-institutional agreement.

Having received no information regarding progress in this matter from the European Commission, the Ombudsman again contacted the Commission regarding the issue of age limits following new complaints about this issue. The Commission responded by repeating its commitment to an inter-institutional agreement to abolish the age limits.

According to the Ombudsman, Article 13 of the EC Treaty provides for action to be taken to combat age discrimination. It is now over a year since the new Treaty came into force. The Ombudsman hopes that the Commission will inform him of measures taken to implement his recommendation by 31 October 2000.

For further information, please call Benita Broms, principal legal officer, tel. + 32 (0) 2 284 2543.