Dear Mr X,

In October 2025, you submitted a complaint to the European Ombudsman against the European External Action Service (EEAS), EU Delegation to Sudan, related to the termination of your local agent contract with the Delegation due to its closure.

In your complaint to the Ombudsman, you claim that you were offered a new contract at the EU Delegation to Egypt, but that the EEAS’s failed to provide you with information concerning its handling of your request for assistance with a work permit application in Egypt.

On the basis of your complaint, the Ombudsman decided to open an inquiry into the EEAS’s failure to reply to your e-mail of 4 August 2025, and asked the EEAS to provide you with an update on the status of your employment situation. We informed you that the inquiry was opened at the Ombudsman’s own initiative, as the Ombudsman was not entitled to deal directly with your complaint because you are not an EU citizen, nor do you reside in the EU.

In January 2026, the EEAS informed us that it had provided you with a reply, updating you on how the matter had been handled.

In March 2026, we gave you the opportunity to provide comments on both the EEAS’s reply and some additional points concerning your work permit. We informed you that, if you decided not to provide any comments by the indicated deadline of 20 April 2026, the Ombudsman would base her next steps on the information you have already provided, and on the EEAS’s reply to you. According to our records, you have not provided any comments.

In the context of this inquiry, the EEAS explained that two options were presented to you in March 2024, which entailed either the termination of your contract, entitling you to an Economic Dismissal Package, or the offer of a possible contract for a post as a driver at the EU Delegation to Egypt, subject to you obtaining a work permit from the Egyptian authorities. Although your preferred option, the second one, ultimately did not materialise, we consider that these options were reasonable given the circumstances. As the EEAS has now explained to you, the Egyptian authorities ultimately did not agree to issue you a work permit.

In light of the explanations provided by the EEAS, we consider that no further inquiries are justified and the case has been closed.

Yours sincerely, 

Tina Nilsson
Head of the Case-handling Unit

Strasbourg, 22/06/2026