The European Commission is responsible for deciding how to allocate funds under the European Defence Fund (EDF). In doing so, it is assisted by external experts, who contribute to the evaluation, ethics review, and budget estimate assessment of proposals. Given the considerable public interest in this area, the Ombudsman opened an own-initiative inquiry into how the Commission ensures there are no conflicts of interest with the experts who assist it.

The Ombudsman found that the Commission largely relies on the information submitted by candidates in its assessment and she encouraged it to proactively look for additional information that may indicate conflicts of interests.

The inquiry also showed that there is no systematic review of the financial interests of experts. To help remedy this, the Ombudsman suggested the Commission ask candidates to complete a detailed declaration of interests.

In cases where experts declared potential conflicts of interest, the Ombudsman found that these experts were recused from the EDF proposals concerned. However, she identified some issues in relation to how the Commission recorded its assessment of these conflicts and made a suggestion for improvement.