The Ombudsman opened an own-initiative inquiry to assess how the European Commission applies its rules concerning 'expert groups', which bring together external experts to provide advice to the Commission in different policy areas. In particular, the Ombudsman sought to assess the transparency of these groups, including regarding their membership and deliberations.

The Ombudsman found that the Commission has put in place internal guidelines for the implementation of the rules and that it provides training to staff. She also found that the Commission has a dedicated internal network of coordinators to monitor and promote the correct implementation of rules.

At the same time, the Ombudsman identified areas where the Commission could further improve the transparency of expert groups and made some suggestions. These include making internal guidelines public, providing lists of non-published documents in expert group meeting minutes to enable the public to request access, setting deadlines for the publication of documents before and after meetings, and improving the search function in document registers relevant to expert groups.