The case concerned how the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA) addressed allegations of fundamental rights violations in its activities on the Greek island of Samos. The complainants were concerned that the way caseworkers deployed in the EUAA asylum support teams conducted interviews with vulnerable asylum seekers was against EU law, and that the EUAA had failed to address this. In addition, the complainants were concerned with how the EUAA dealt with the asylum seekers’ reports of pushbacks.

The Ombudsman found that, at the time of the complaint, the EUAA had failed to ensure that caseworkers deployed in its asylum support teams were prepared to properly conduct interviews with vulnerable asylum seekers, including as regards how to take into account indicators of vulnerabilities when these emerge for the first time during the asylum interview. The Ombudsman further found that the EUAA had failed to provide vulnerable asylum seekers with an appropriate procedure to report mistakes made during interviews and to have such reports reviewed by the EUAA. The Ombudsman found that this constituted maladministration and made four recommendations to the EUAA to address the shortcomings.

The Ombudsman also sent these recommendations to her counterparts from the European Network of Ombudsmen (ENO), seeking their views on how compliance with fundamental rights is ensured in the cooperation between EUAA caseworkers and national asylum officials.

In addition, the Ombudsman identified important shortcomings in relation to how the EUAA dealt with the asylum seekers’ disclosure of experiences of pushbacks during interviews. As the EUAA started implementing measures to remedy these shortcomings during the Ombudsman’s inquiry, she did not find maladministration but instead made two suggestions for improvement.

The three cases concerned how the European Commission applied its Better Regulation rules and other procedural requirements when preparing legislative proposals concerning corporate sustainability due diligence (983/2025/MIK), countering migrant smuggling (2031/2024/VB) and the Common Agricultural Policy (1379/2024/MIK). The Commission considered these proposals to be urgent and, therefore, omitted steps foreseen in its rules, such as impact assessments and public consultations. The complainants, which are civil society organisations, considered these omissions to be in breach of the Commission’s Better Regulation rules. In two cases, the complainants also argued that the Commission failed to assess the legislative proposals’ consistency with the EU’s climate goals, as required by the European Climate Law. In one case, the complainant was further concerned that the Commission breached its Rules of Procedure on inter-service consultations.

Based on her inquiries, the Ombudsman found procedural shortcomings in how the Commission prepared the legislative proposals in question, which, taken together, amounted to maladministration. To address these shortcomings, the Ombudsman recommended that the Commission ensure a predictable, consistent and non-arbitrary application of its Better Regulation rules, by defining ‘urgent’ situations that justify a derogation from their requirements, as well as by recording and explaining the reasons for any derogations granted. Furthermore, where derogations are granted, the Commission should establish a procedure to ensure that the urgent preparation of legislative proposals still complies with the principles of a transparent, evidence-based and inclusive law-making process. To assist the Commission in this task, the Ombudsman also made four suggestions for improvement, which included: clarifying its stakeholder consultation rules for urgent proposals; ensuring that the analytical documents replacing impact assessments and outlining the evidence supporting its proposals are published in a timely manner to enable a public debate before the legislation is adopted; issuing guidance on implementing climate consistency assessments; providing and recording justifications when shortening inter-service consultation periods below established thresholds.

In its reply to the Ombudsman, the Commission agreed to reflect on defining ‘urgent’ situations during the upcoming revision of the Better Regulation rules, as well as to record and publish the reasons for applying any derogations from their requirements. The Commission also committed to ensure targeted consultations on its ‘urgent’ proposals, to publish the analytical documents with evidence supporting its proposals within three months of adoption, to include climate consistency assessments in both analytical documents and explanatory memoranda for future proposals and to provide justifications for shortened inter-service consultations.

The complainants, in their comments on the Commission’s reply, considered that the Commission’s commitments are neither clear nor concrete enough to guarantee a transparent, inclusive and evidence-based law-making process.

The Ombudsman welcomed the overall constructive reply of the Commission to her recommendations and suggestions for improvement. That said, the Commission’s response does not yet provide sufficient clarity on the concrete steps it intends to take to implement the Ombudsman’s recommendations and suggestions for improvement.

The Ombudsman will therefore monitor this matter based on future complaints and once the Commission has finalised the revision of the Better Regulation rules. At this stage, no further inquiries are justified, and the Ombudsman closed the three cases.

The case concerned how the European Commission ensures that Romania fully implements a judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union on the unlawful refusal to issue identity cards to Romanian citizens domiciled in other Member States.

The Ombudsman found that the matter appeared to be evolving at national level and that the Commission had been monitoring the situation actively and at reasonable intervals.

The Ombudsman closed the case with the conclusion that no further inquiries are justified at this stage. However, the Ombudsman requested the Commission to update her, within six months, on its assessment of Romania’s compliance with the judgment and any further action taken by the Commission.

The case concerned a request for public access to documents held by the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) concerning its cooperation with authorities of Member States, the UK and Frontex on counter-smuggling activities in the English Channel. Europol identified 197 documents as falling within the scope of the request and refused access to all of them. In refusing access, Europol argued that the disclosure of the documents would undermine the protection of the public interest as regards public security and its international relations. 

The Ombudsman inquiry team inspected samples of the documents at issue and met with Europol representatives. Based on this and considering the wide margin of discretion that EU institutions and agencies enjoy where they consider that public security and international relations are at risk, the Ombudsman found that Europol’s decision to refuse public access was not manifestly wrong.

Given that the public interests at stake cannot be superseded by another public interest that is deemed more important, the Ombudsman closed the inquiry finding that there was no maladministration by Europol.