Search inquiries

The case concerned how the European Personnel Selection Office (EPSO) assessed the complainant’s education and professional experience in a selection procedure for recruiting EU staff in the field of financial rules applicable to EU budget. 

The Ombudsman found nothing to suggest a manifest error how the selection board assessed the complainant’s qualifications. The Ombudsman therefore closed the inquiry with a finding of no maladministration.

The case concerned a request for public access to documents detailing the expenses relating to an official visit by the then President of the European Commission to Buenos Aires to attend the G20 summit. The Commission identified two invoices as falling within the scope of the request but refused access relying on the need to protect personal data.

The Ombudsman found that the access request could be addressed by disclosing information on the nature of the expenses at issue and made a corresponding proposal for a solution. The Ombudsman also suggested that such information be proactively disclosed in certain circumstances.

The Commission accepted the Ombudsman’s proposal for a solution and agreed proactively to disclose information on the nature of such miscellaneous costs in future.

The Ombudsman welcomed the Commission’s positive response and commended it for the steps it has already taken towards greater transparency of Commissioners’ expenses. On this basis, she closed the inquiry.

The case concerned a request for public access to documents concerning Frontex’s budget. The complainant turned to the Ombudsman as Frontex refused to process his request because he did not provide proof of his identity in the manner requested by Frontex.

The Ombudsman found that the complainant’s request could be addressed by providing him with some useful information. She therefore made a corresponding proposal for a solution.

Frontex accepted the Ombudsman’s proposal for a solution. The Ombudsman thus closed the inquiry finding that the complaint had been settled. The Ombudsman is pursuing the underlying issue of proof of identity in the context of her inquiry into joined cases 1261/2020/MAS and 1361/2020/MAS.

The case concerned the European Commission´s decision to reject almost EUR 50 000 in the context of an EU-funded project supporting education in Somalia.

The Ombudsman made the preliminary finding that the Commission´s decision was not fair. She made a corresponding proposal for a solution.

The Commission disagreed with the Ombudsman´s proposal and provided additional explanations for its position. The grant agreement, it said, contains a list of non-eligible costs including salary costs of the personnel of national administrations, at issue here. Declaring the costs eligible, although they are clearly ineligible, could create a precedent that the rules in question can be circumvented. In light of these and further explanations, the Ombudsman reached the conclusion that no further inquiries were justified. The grant agreement, read as a whole, supports the Commission´s position sufficiently.

However, the Ombudsman considered it regrettable that an organisation that successfully carried out a project in good faith and incurred the costs in question, should find itself in this situation. She suggested that the Commission consider how it could improve the clarity of the information in its ‘grant agreements’ with entities selected to carry out EU-funded projects, to avoid similar cases arising in the future.

The case concerned the decision of the European Commission to recover funds that it had paid in advance, by way of a ‘pre-financing payment’, to an organisation that carried out a project aimed at helping refugees and asylum seekers. The Commission sought to recover the funds, as the pre-financing payment amounted to more than the proportion of the overall project costs for which the Commission was ultimately liable.

The complainant, which is a small UK-registered charity, wrote to the Commission asking for lenience, and requested that the Commission consider waiving the recovery or adjusting the terms for the repayment.

In the course of the Ombudsman’s inquiry, the Commission agreed to the complainant’s request that the sum be repaid by means of instalments.

Following this, and as the Commission had acted in accordance with the rules governing the grant, the Ombudsman closed the inquiry with a finding of no maladministration. However, given the circumstances of the case, she invited the Commission to reconsider if anything further can be done to accommodate the complainant’s requests for assistance.