The complainant worked as an expert for an external EU contractor on an EU-funded project in Tanzania managed by the Delegation of the European Union to Tanzania and the East African Community. The complainant claimed that the contractor breached Tanzanian law by failing to register in Tanzania, preventing him from obtaining a valid work permit. Subsequently, the contractor informed the complainant of its decision to terminate his contract, taking into account concerns about the complainant’s work raised by the EU Delegation.

The Ombudsman opened an inquiry into the complainant’s concerns about how the Delegation handled both matters. In this regard, the Ombudsman referred to her consistently taken view that, where EU institutions seek the replacement of experts working on EU projects, those individuals should be heard before they are replaced. While the Commission argued that it did not ask for the expert’s replacement, the Ombudsman found that the Commission had been involved in the replacement decision. The Ombudsman thus found that the Commission failed to ensure that the complainant’s right to be heard was respected prior to his replacement, which amounted to maladministration.  She made a suggestion for improvement aimed at preventing the issue from occurring in the future. 

In addition, the Ombudsman found that, as the complainant’s contract had been terminated, no further inquiries were justified into the work permit issue. She nevertheless made a suggestion for improvement to the Commission, inviting it to verify the matter as it may affect other experts working on the EU project. 

 

The case concerned a decision of the European Commission, which granted Spain a derogation from a rule in the Energy Directive. The rule provides that transmission system operators may not own energy storage facilities. The decision grants a derogation from that rule as concerns pumped hydropower storage facilities in the Canary Islands. The complaint to the Ombudsman was that the Commission had interpreted the rule wrongly and that, in any case, the conditions for granting the derogation were not fulfilled.

The Ombudsman inquired into the issue and found that while the complaint was not without merits, the Commission’s actions did not amount to maladministration. However, the Ombudsman suggested the Commission should remind its services of the importance of engaging substantively and in sufficient detail with citizens who bring well-argued and detailed concerns to its attention.