Dear Mrs K.,
On 12 June 1998 you made a complaint to the European Ombudsman on behalf of the Association "Föreningen Kökarkultur" concerning the decision of the European Commission to reject your association's application for the 1998 Kaleidoscope programme at the pre-selection stage.
On 22 July 1998, I forwarded the complaint to the President of the European Commission. The Commission sent its opinion on 22 October 1998 and I forwarded it to you with an invitation to make observations, if you so wished. On 5 November 1998, I received your observations on the Commission's opinion.
I am writing now to let you know the results of the inquiries that have been made.

THE COMPLAINT

On 27 March 1998, the Commission DG X informed the complainant that her application introduced in the framework of the 1998 Kaleidoscope programme was rejected at the pre-selection stage. The Commission explained that the application did not fulfil the formal criteria for participation as published in the Official Journal of the European Communities (1) as the budget statement was missing from it.
According to the complainant, a complete application including the budget statement was sent to the Commission. However, the complainant admitted that they only sent the original application without the additional two copies required in the application form.
The complainant had, however, taken A3 size photocopies of her application. In its letter of 27 March 1998, the Commission had included copies of the original application using A4 size paper. This, according to the complainant, proved that the missing budget statement pages were lost between the moment the application form arrived in Brussels and the moment the pages were copied after being detached from each other for making the A4 copies.

THE INQUIRY

The Commission's opinion
In its opinion the Commission made the following points:

The Kökarkultur Association's project was refused because the budget statement was missing from the application which was received by the Commission for the deadline of 1 December 1997;

It is stated in the call for application that incomplete applications are rejected at the pre-selection stage and returned to the applicant. On this basis, the Commission was not in a position to take this application into consideration;

The Commission services explained the above reasons in a letter sent to the association on 7 May 1998 and the matter was also discussed several times in telephone conversations between the representatives of the association and the Commission;

Naturally, each application was carefully handled by the Commission services, and it seemed highly unlikely, if not impossible, that the budget statement could have been lost upon arrival at the Commission;

A copy of the budget statement was faxed to the Commission on 20 April 1998, but at that stage the selection of the 147 projects to receive Kaleidoscope support for 1998 had already been made and formally approved by the Commission and it was too late to re-examine the project of association Kökarkultur;

The Commission received 930 applications in the framework of the 1998 Kaleidoscope programme. In the pre-selection stage, 263 applications were refused for formal reasons. Most of these projects were refused because the budget statement was not correct (66 %), but a large number of projects were refused because the application forms were not complete (25 %). Clearly, the term "incomplete applications" includes applications where parts of the application form are missing or annexes not included;

The Commission does not have the possibility to recontact applicants who have sent incorrect or incomplete application forms. For that reason, it is clearly stated in the call for application, the application form and the guidelines that "incomplete applications, or applications which do not meet the eligibility criteria will be rejected at the pre-selection stage and will be returned to the applicant";

The Commission services considered therefore that the rejection of this project was justified.

The complainant's observations
The complainant maintained her complaint.

THE DECISION

1 Missing budget statement
1.1 The complainant alleges that the Commission services had in fact lost the budget statement her association had sent attached to the application form.
1.2 The complainant had taken an A3 size copy of the original application form this according to her proved that the pages were attached to each other. In its letter of 27 March 1998, the Commission had annexed an A4 size copy of the original application form which according to the complainant proved that the pages were detached from each other at the Commission.
1.3 The Commission claims that each application was carefully handled by the Commission services, and it seemed highly unlikely, if not impossible, that the budget statement could have been lost upon arrival at the Commission.
1.4 The Ombudsman's inquiries into this complaint indicate that it is stated in the application form that applicants have to provide the original application and two copies of it and the budget statement. The complainant has acknowledged that she only sent the original application form to which the budget statement was allegedly attached.
1.5 The Commission in its comments has recognised that the required copies had to be made by the Commission services. According to the Commission, as the budget statement was missing, copies were only taken of the application form and the annexes.
1.6 In view of the above findings, the Ombudsman has not been presented with sufficient material to enable him to conclude that the budget statement was lost upon its arrival at the Commission.
Conclusion
On the basis of the European Ombudsman's inquiries into this complaint, there appears to have been no maladministration by the European Commission. The Ombudsman has therefore decided to close the case.
The President of the European Commission will also be informed of this decision.
Yours sincerely,
Jacob SÖDERMAN

---

(1) OJ C 253 19.8.1997