President
European Investment Bank

 

Dear President,

I refer to my earlier letter in the above case, in which I asked the EIB to reply to a number of questions and for my inquiry team to inspect certain documents.[1]

The EIB provided access to documents it identified as falling within the scope of my request. It also provided a reply to the questions posed. Members of your staff have in the meantime assisted my inquiry team in preparing a non-confidential version of the EIB’s reply that was shared with the complainant for comments. I thank you for the good cooperation.

Based on the information obtained in this inquiry to date, I have now concluded that it would be useful to receive a written reply from the EIB to the detailed questions in the annex. In particular, it would be useful to know whether:

• The measures that the EIB adopted to mitigate risks, to which the intended post-mandate activity of the former Vice-President gave rise, were complied with consistently.
• The former Vice-President was involved in the negotiations of financing agreements related to his future employer.
• The EIB replied to all the aspects of the complaint as submitted by the complainant.
• The EIB’s rules for Management Committee members’ intended post-mandate activities in the public sector are equivalent to the Commission’s rules for commissioners’ intended post-mandate activities in the public sector.

Please note that I am likely to send your reply and related enclosures to the complainant for comments^[2]. Should the reply include information that the EIB considers to be confidential, I would ask the EIB to include this information in a confidential annex to the reply.

I would be grateful if the EIB could reply by 30 June 2023 if possible.

The responsible inquiries officer is Mr Koen Roovers, should members of your staff have any need for clarification.

Yours sincerely,

Emily O'Reilly
European Ombudsman

Strasbourg, 04/04/2023

 

[1] See: https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/opening-summary/en/157574.

[2] If you wish to submit documents or information that you consider to be confidential, and which should not be disclosed to the complainant, please mark them ‘Confidential’. Encrypted emails can be sent to our dedicated mailbox. Information and documents of this kind will be deleted from the European Ombudsman’s files shortly after the inquiry has ended.