The European Ombudsman has opened an inquiry into how the European Commission ensures external experts who help it evaluate European Defence Fund (EDF) project proposals do not have conflicts of interest.

Contrary to the general practice for the evaluation of proposals meant to receive EU funding, the Commission is not required to make public the names of the experts it consults for EDF-backed projects.

The Ombudsman’s inquiry follows previous correspondence with the Commission on this matter, which indicated that it largely relies on experts’ self-declarations to prevent potential conflicts of interest.

As a first step, the Ombudsman has sent a series of questions to the Commission. These cover issues such as how Commission staff evaluate and verify experts’ self-declarations, how often conflicts of interest have been identified, if the Commission has guidance for when experts may be retained despite potential conflicts of interest, and how the Commission deals with alerts concerning conflicts of interest from outside sources.

The Ombudsman has asked the Commission to reply by 31 January 2024.

Background

Through the evaluation of research and development projects for defence technology and equipment, independent experts help the Commission decide which projects should receive financial backing from the EDF.

The EDF first came into being in January 2021 and has a budget of around EUR8 billion for the period 2021 to 2027.