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European Ombudsman: Ensuring a transparent and accountable EU
Video - Date Friday | 09 June 2023 - Duration 54:00 - Copyright European Union / European Ombudsman
Transcript of this video
Nathalie Hubin
Good afternoon. Welcome everyone here in the room and for those watching online, welcome as well. I'm very happy to see so many of you here today to discuss ensuring a transparent and accountable EU.
I am Nathalie Hubin. I'm from Belgium and Thailand and I'll be your moderator for this session.
I currently work at the European Ombudsman's office in Brussels and I'm part of the communications team.
Today, I have the honour of being joined by the European Ombudsman, Mrs. Emily O'Reilly, who will discuss the important role good administration plays in upholding EU democracy and ensuring that your voice is heard. So without further ado, I give the floor to the Ombudsman.
Emily O'Reilly
Thank you very much, Nathalie. Good morning, good afternoon, everybody. Lovely to see so many people here and thank you for attending this particular session. You're coming here to Strasbourg at an incredibly critical and exciting time for the EU. So I hope you, as they say, profit from your experiences because you're right at the centre of things now and at the centre of debates that are happening, huge debates that are happening about climate, all sorts of geopolitical issues, about relations with China, with Russia, the implications of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, artificial intelligence, which seems to be what everybody's talking about now. And why it's really important for you guys is that a lot of us aren't going to be around when they really impact on all of your lives, you know.
And so what the EU does now, the decisions it makes, how it legislates in all of those areas over the next while is going to be critically important to you and to your families over the next several decades.
So I'm going to talk a little bit about my role in all of that and then I'd be happy to take questions.
So it says on our slide, ensuring a transparent and accountable EU. And when you translate that, if I'm being glib about it, it says, you know, our job is to keep the good guys good, to make sure that the people who are incredibly important positions who make legislation that affect all of your lives and even the lives of those outside of the EU because the EU isn't just a regulator for the EU, it's a global regulator. And you can see that when it comes to tech and the impact some of the legislation that has been enacted by the EU over the last number of years has impacted on big tech.
And obviously what it does in climate change is also very critical in terms of not just in terms of the EU, but in terms of the wider world.
So most of you, if you're from the EU, will already be familiar perhaps with your own member state ombudsman or mediator or defender of the people or whatever title it is given in your countries. And it's basically a bridge between the citizens and the administration to make sure that the administration treats the citizens fairly.
And so, let's say if at home someone you know has an issue in relation to education, to housing, to health or whatever they feel they've been treated unfairly, they can turn to the ombudsman and that person will investigate and will put suggestions or recommendations forward for a solution.
And that's exactly what the European ombudsman does. But instead of, you know, departments of agriculture and fisheries and health and finance and so on, we have the biggest client is the Commission and the various departments within that trade, competition, financial services, all of that. But under a mandate, we also have all of the agencies, a lot of the important agencies, the European Chemicals Agency, the European Medicines Agency, which are so critical to the whole vaccine rollout and checking that the vaccines were safe and so on. We have the European Food Safety Authority, another very important one. And then we have the big financial beast: we have the European Central Bank. We have the European Investment Bank and all of that.
So we don't look in terms of, you know, their decision making as such. We look at how it impacts on people if they feel that they have been impacted negatively by decisions that have been made by any of those institutions, agencies or bodies.
So for example, let's say somebody, an NGO business in one of your hometowns has got a grant from the Commission for a particular project or a particular business idea or something, run into problems with the Commission. The Commission thinks that the NGO or the business isn't operating the finances properly, looking for the money back. The NGO or the business thinks that's not fair, comes to us and we attempt to sort it out.
Now, it's not that we make binding decisions. We're not a court.
But as I describe it as my magic power, I can see anything I need to see in order to make a report and then follow up with recommendations where people can be sure that we have seen everything that we need to see. It doesn't mean that we publish everything, but it does mean that we get to see everything that we need to see.
So a lot of the issues that we deal with as well, and some of you may have in your various worker studies or whatever, you'd be familiar with access to documents, freedom of information. And obviously the EU is a powerhouse when it comes to legislation and people want to know what's going on. And so they can make an access to documents or a freedom of information request. If they don't get what they want, again, they can come to us and they can sort it out.
We also deal in the fundamental rights area primarily through Frontex, which as you know, is the border protection agency of the EU, which since the migration crisis really exploded over the last number of years has been given an enormous increase in its budget and in its border patrol capacity to deal with those issues. But it also has huge fundamental rights, human rights responsibilities. And a lot of the complaints we get in relation to Frontex relates to how it is making sure that it looks after the fundamental rights of people who it may come across in the course of their work. And we sort out that.
So let me give you a few of the more, I guess, high profile cases that we've dealt with over the last while. And particularly, I think in the area of ethics access to documents, most of you, I hope, will have heard of Qatargate by now. Yes, if you haven't, possibly you shouldn't be here because you haven't done your homework. But anyway, Qatargate, as you know, exploded onto Brussels really. Actually, what date is today? The 9th, exactly! It is the six month anniversary of Qatargate, I think, today, when the Belgian police authorities arrested a number of MEPs and other people in relation to an alleged bribery scandal involving the Qatar government and possibly other governments as well. And this has led to a huge debate within the European administration in terms of how they should best build an ethics framework, the architecture they should build to protect from what European Parliament President Metsola described as an attack on our democracy.
So where we come into this, we do deal an awful lot with the issues around ethics conflicts of interest, revolving doors cases. Revolving doors is a sort of a shorthand for when somebody moves from the public administration, where they might have been a regulator, for example, say, DG trade, DG competition, and they move to a private company, which is regulated by the commission DG that they formerly worked in. So that's not forbidden as such, but it is monitored. There are rules to protect the public interest to make sure that basically private information isn't being traded and preferential treatment isn't being given to private companies.
So last year we did a big, big substantial systemic case. We looked at 100 files involving 100 people working in the commission who had moved out of the commission to work elsewhere. Now not all of them had gone into the private sector. Some have gone into civil society, some had gone into academia. And we looked not at the individuals themselves because we're not investigating the individuals, we're investigating how the commission handled this.
And so we found that in general the commission was very reluctant to stop people from moving into a particular job, even if there were prima facie conflicts of interest in relation to it.
So what we were trying to do there was to make general recommendations in relation to how this could be best managed.
So every year now the commission publishes a list of their senior officials. It says what they used to do.
It also says where they went, company A, company X, and it publishes the restrictions that have been placed on their work in the private sector.
So what this does is that it enables people like you, it enables civil society, media, whatever also to monitor what's happening.
So it's not just the commission that's attempting to protect the public interest, it's also you guys.
But there were a couple of other very high profile revolving doors cases which we dealt with.
One which is from a few years back involved the former commission president Barroso. And at the time there was what's called a cooling off period of 18 months when commission presidents aren't supposed to really do any work. So anyway, after 18 months President Barroso accepted a senior post in Goldman Sachs Investment Bank and we got a lot of complaints about that.
Why did we get complaints about that? What's wrong with working with Goldman Sachs? Well this wasn't that long after the financial crisis and Goldman Sachs had been very heavily and negatively implicated in the financial crisis both in the US in terms of the subprime housing market and also in Europe and particularly in Greece. So most people thought it was not appropriate for a former commission president to work with a company like Goldman Sachs.
So we looked into it and the way we did it was quite simply we said well commission tell us what you did in relation to this, show us the files, the records in relation to all of this. This was done and as a result we made a number of recommendations, some of which the commission accepted and some of which it didn't.
So one recommendation it accepted was that there should be a longer cooling off period for commission presidents, three years instead of 18 months and a longer period, cooling off period for ordinary commissioners, I think 18 months from a year or something like that, but anyway that was lengthened.
Now one recommendation that we did make that wasn't accepted and I think which kind of feeds into the debate now around Qatargate and the moves that are being made by the various institutions to strengthen their integrity framework.
At the time and there still is a committee within the commission called the ethics committee, it's called the ad hoc ethics committee and it is supposed to look into issues such as the one that I mentioned or let's say there's a complaint that a former commissioner has gone to work for a company and there is a belief that the work in that company was too close to the work that he or she did as commissioner, conflict of interest, blah blah blah.
So this committee is supposed to look into it.
The problem as we saw it, it wasn't with the integrity of the people who were on the committee but first of all the committee was very small, like just three people. I think a former judge from the UCJ, I think a former commissioner and a former senior MEP, very small. So we said that the commission or the committee should be expanded. You need more experts in. You need a wider range of views and not just an institutionally narrow set. They did not agree.
We also said, and to me this is the important, really important piece, was that the ethics body should be given the power of own initiative.
In other words, let's say the ethics body wakes up one morning, reads Le Monde, whatever, Politico and reads a story about something that could potentially be relevant to their work.
They cannot on their own initiative decide to investigate it. They have to wait until they are asked by the commission to investigate something.
So if Qatargate happened or the equivalent in commission land, let's say, they can't independently investigate that.
So we said that they should be allowed independently to investigate that and that was not accepted.
Now I have mentioned that several times over the last six months because when Qatargate happened and everybody was talking about we've got to do, we've really got to deal with this, I said one of the key things that citizens look for, when they're judging the quality of an ethics body, is that it's independent and it actually has powers to investigate.
And so to my mind, the ethics body in the committee, in the Commission fell short on that. But some of the investigations were accepted. Some of our recommendations were accepted.
We also did two revolving doors cases, one involving a very important body called the European Banking Authority. And this was set up, as I say, out of the ashes of the financial crisis. And its whole “raison d'être” is to make sure that financial regulation is carried out well within the member states. And it was the absence of sound financial regulation, including in my own country in Ireland that led to the horror of the financial crisis and what that meant for families and people and individuals and companies.
So anyway, this was set up and two years ago, the head of the agency was allowed to move to the biggest banking lobbying firm in Europe. And naturally we got a complaint about this. And I think we actually said it in our recommendation. We found maladministration and we said, if there was any job you should have stopped. It was this one.
Because when you think about citizen trust, trust in an organization, an agency, particularly one that was set up to enhance citizen trust, you can see why that was a problem.
So anyway, they accepted what we said and they have changed their protocols and the rules in relation to it. So hopefully that won't happen again.
We also did kind of a similar investigation following a complaint in relation to the European Defense Agency, which of course is taking on a bigger role now since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And in that instance, the head of the agency had moved to Airbus company, which is one of the biggest contractor companies for the European Defense Agency. And again, we found maladministration in relation to that. And hopefully again, that won't happen.
So the recommendations, you know, it wasn't like we were going to say, you know, obviously he'd gone by then. So there was nothing anybody could do. But this, a lot of our recommendations are to improve into the future of what happens.
Another fairly high profile, very high profile investigation we did, and some of you may be aware of it, and that involved the current Commission President, von der Leyen, and the contracts with the Pfizer company for the vaccines, which I'd say most of you have received several times. So this story saga emerged from an article that was written in April 2020 in the New York Times. And it was about how the deal between the Commission and Pfizer had come about. Because prior to that, the Commission had been dealing with AstraZeneca. And problems had arisen with the deal with AstraZeneca, the over promise to the UK, under promise to the EU, and understandably and correctly, the Commission was trying to get vaccines for all of us. So it had to go to another supplier.
So the article detailed how texts and email exchanges between Madam von der Leyen, Commission President von der Leyen, and Mr. Bourla, who was the head of Pfizer, had eventually led to, it was called personal diplomacy, was the phrase that the New York Times used, had led eventually to the contracts. Which have been incredibly important. So there's no denying that, and there's no denying the fact that she was absolutely right to do what she did in terms of trying to find an alternative supplier.
But then another journalist was reading the New York Times article and thought, wouldn't it be interesting to try and find those emails and texts that went between Madam von der Leyen and Mr. Bourla. And since then, there has been stonewalling, as we say, the Commission has never released, have never really acknowledged that they exist. And various people have looked into this. We've looked into it. I think the European Court of Auditors have looked into it and came up against the same blank wall. The European Public Prosecutor's Office are looking into some element of it. I've no idea of what. So everybody's been looking at this. And why that is a problem? Oh yes, there's also a European Parliament committee looking generally at the European Administration's handling of COVID, but more specifically at the text messages exchanges. So it just hangs over the Commission.
And as I say, when things aren't done properly, it feeds, it can feed Euroscepticism. I mean, it's really fantastic for those who are hostile to the EU to say, look at this, look at this. And as you know, Hungary and Poland have been the subject of a lot of investigation by the EU in relation to alleged rule of law breaches and all of that. And one of the first people to comment on Qatargate was Viktor Orbán from Hungary, who was saying, well, hang on, you guys are, you know, as we say in English, wagging the finger at us, but you guys. So that's why it is so important. You're enjoying this for some reason. I don't know. But anyway, oh, that could explain it.
Yes, yes, and actually, I remember there was a guy called, an MEP called Daniel Freund from the Greens. And he's been very prominent in the whole Qatargate investigation and trying to lobby for stricter rules and all of that. But he went to Budapest a few months ago. And he was at Budapest train station. And there were, I think, friends of Mr. Orbán were there with suitcases with Éva Kaïlí's face on the suitcase and cash coming out of the suitcase. So of course, these things are going to be exploited.
Okay, so anyway, so the ending of the saga of the text messages may actually be in Luxembourg in a few years time, because the New York Times has taken the Commission to Court to the ECJ in relation to this. So we'll all have to wait. We'll all have to wait for that.
So not everything we do, of course, is as high profile.
One investigation we did, which we were all very pleased with, related to, you know, it has a resonance with you guys, because there was a complaint we got from somebody who'd worked in the European External Action Service, which is basically the Foreign Service of the EU. And she had been a trainee, and she was complaining about the fact that trainees were not paid. You know, they weren't paid, they didn't get any travel costs, any lunch costs, anything. So basically meant that if you had money, or your parents had money, or your relatives had money, you could afford a traineeship. If you didn't, no matter how brilliant you were, you couldn't. And sort of like privilege following privilege. You have the money, do the traineeship, that's something else on your CV, but somebody else doesn't. So they're at a disadvantage.
So we investigated that, and with the help of Parliament, and indeed with the Council, we arrived at a resolution whereby trainees in the EEAS are now paid. And I think this has had an impact on, you know, on other agencies and bodies in relation to that.
And, you know, in that it wasn't that we looked at a particular law or rule, because there was no rule as such preventing it, but we looked at the values of the EU, which are in the treaties, which is the big law, the overarching law. And one of those values is non-discrimination. And we felt that this fitted into this particular area.
Another interesting case we were doing, and some of you, if you do apply for jobs in Europe, in the EU, you may go through the European Personnel Selection Office, which basically does these huge competitions every year for various positions. Thousands of people apply to them, very, very competitive. And therefore, when you get to do the test, it's a huge thing because it could determine a lot of your career.
So during COVID, EPSO had decided that they weren't going to invite people to the actual centres where these would happen, post-COVID as well, I think. And so they asked people to do these tests in their homes. So all sorts of problems arose, as you can imagine, in terms of technology. You can imagine this. I remember my own daughter did not an EPSO competition, but something like that online during COVID. Our Wi-Fi didn't work. This didn't work. Something else didn't work. Her stress levels were that high. My stress levels were that high. So I can really understand, you know, the issues that were coming. And then people had to make sure they were in a space where nobody could enter. They had to arrange their camera in such a way that, oh, anyway, it was a mess.
And so there were a lot of complaints about that. And the result was, not because of our particular intervention in it, but the competition was ended, wasn't it? They axed the competition. So even though a lot of people had already been told, you've passed this stage, there was such controversy about it and such a pushback that they decided to scrap the entire competition.
So we're looking at their system. We're looking at how it emerged that they could do this. And also we're looking into the future as to how EPSO will deal with these competitions. I mean, my feeling is that EPSO loves the idea of people doing it in their homes because that gets rid of the need for training centers and so on. But they really have to put themselves into the shoes of the people who are doing these competitions. It doesn't take that much imagination to do it. So they have to really understand that human piece.
What else have we done? Yeah, we do a lot on making the legislative process transparent. So there are things called trilogues, which some of you may have heard of but others not, because it's not a word that appears in any treaty or any piece of EU law, but it's a kind of an informal term, which means the informal discussions that go on between the commission that proposes legislation and the Council and the Parliament who then are the co-legislators and how they debate over time and discuss over time to arrive at a resolution in relation to legislation, whether it stays as the commission first proposed it, whether it's amended or whether it's scrapped.
So when I came here almost over nine years ago now, everybody was talking about trilogues. Everybody was talking about trilogues, but you didn't know where they were on, what they were about, who was taking part. It was like this black box. Everybody loved taking part in them because you were kind of special if you were taking part in a trilogue. But if you were just an ordinary citizen, it was very hard to know what the heck was going on.
And under the treaties, all of you, all of us as EU citizens have a right to take part in the democratic life of the union. But it's very hard to take part in the democratic life of the union if you don't know what's going on in the first place.
So over time, we have managed to get some change in that, that there are trilogues. We now know where they're going on, who's taking part, all of that. There are still issues. There have been a number of court cases in relation to what's known as the four column document. So imagine they're working on a document. So you have commission proposal, EP proposal, Council proposal, and then the fourth document, the fourth column is the compromise. And the compromise arises over time. So the fourth column, they try and keep secret because that's where people see who's compromised, where the changes are. I mean, my view is that citizens know that, of course, if a piece of legislation is going through, there has to be debate. There has to be discussion. So the heavens do not fall when some of this is made available. The timing of when it's made available is obviously important.
And finally, is there any one particular … Yeah, trade agreements, when the EU makes trade agreements with particularly countries that are poor, that are still developing, it's very important that the human rights aspects of that is taken into account. You know, if new industries are coming in, new services are being provided, well, how is that going to impact on the people, you know, who provide whatever is there at the moment? Workers' rights, labour rights, all of those issues need to be taken into account. It's not just about the money. So we were critical, we have been critical in the past of the Commission for not fully carrying out those human rights impact assessments when it comes to trade deals.
So anyway, that is a general view of what we do. As you can see, it is certainly our access to documents power or mandate, that gives, brings us into all sorts of different areas. And yet, as I said, we don't make binding decisions, but we are essentially an influencer.
We hope that with our complaints, our investigations, the work that we do, you know, here reaching out to people like you, and to the media, civil society, generally that will influence positive change in the administration for the benefit of all of the citizens. So thank you for that. Thank you.
Nathalie Hubin
Thank you Ombudsman. I will now open the floor for some questions. When you ask your questions, please do turn on your microphone so those watching online can also hear them. And please introduce yourselves, let us know where you're from. So any questions? Yes, please go ahead. You were the first.
Axel
Hi, so my name is Axel. I was born and raised in Brussels, but I'm half Swedish, half Italian. And I just graduated from UCD in Dublin. So yeah. Yeah, I think, I think there's a poster of you in UCD, I think. But basically, my question is, do you think there is a kind of, like, gulf between the people and the Commission? I'm not talking about the people and the European Ombudsman, but the people and the Commission, because I think that sometimes when you look at the feedback that people give on the different platforms that EU gives, there's a lot of negative, but it doesn't translate into, like, ceasing of this policy. I'm thinking about a lot of policies that are supposed to, like, make our world more technological and make us all connected and make us, make us, our ID cards all connected. It's like, people don't want this, but it doesn't get stopped. So yeah.
Emily O’Reilly
Yeah, we have done more precisely in relation to this. You know, how does, let's say the Commission, it's others as well, obviously, but the Commission, as I said, the big beast in the jungle. So how does that listen to people? And we have done work, for example, on the expert groups that feed into the Commission, you know, deliberations on legislation to make sure that they're balanced, that it's not just all, you know, industry, that civil society views come in as well. And that's particularly important in relation to the climate crisis, because obviously a lot of businesses and industries are going to be disturbed, changed by the policies that are being made by the EU. And the battle now is between the people who want to go fast on climate crisis, and you just need to look across the Atlantic of what's happening in Canada and America at the moment, just to see one part of that. And so there's that battle, hurry up, we're all going to die, literally. And the other piece, which is, well, this is really going to put people out of work, it'll do this, it'll do that, blah, blah, blah, blah, we have to go slowly, we have to go slowly. So obviously there are certainly an argument on one side, don't kill us, but the arguments on the other side can be a little more subtle. So it's important that the Commission listens to both, and really deconstructs the arguments of those who would want, for their own particular reasons, a slower pace in relation to change. I mean, it was interesting, not to single out McDonald's, but McDonald's ran a week-long ad campaign in Politico, which I'm sure you're familiar with, and I was reading it, and it was about how really legislation to reduce packaging would actually lead to a higher level of packaging. So it's a classic picture, I didn't deconstruct it myself, but you can see how every industry whose work impacts negatively, can impact negatively on the environment, is going to be pushing back. So that's a huge battle. But we did a public consultation on transparency and accountability in environmental decision making, and we did get a lot of feedback, and now we will be feeding that back to the Commission, and it's precisely in the areas that you said, that you're really listening to people, and not doing a nice little consultation and throwing it in the bin. I'm not saying they do that, but I'm sure some people feel that if their views aren't being reflected in something, that that's what happens.
Nathalie Hubin
Yes, thank you. Over there.
Karelis
My name is Karelis, I'm from the Netherlands. I'm a master student in international European Union law, and I'm writing my master thesis on the democratic legitimacy of the ordinary legislative procedure. And I have a question, because everywhere I go around I see democracy, 70 years of democracy. And I wrote in my master thesis also about the ombudsman part about the trilogues and land transparency. And my question to you is, regarding the Parliament, would you think it would be better if the Parliament also had the right of initiative? Next to the Commission? Because Parliament is the only organ that's directly chosen by the EU citizen.
Yeah, I'm not supposed to stray into politics. And that is politics. And certainly, you know, that is an argument, certainly, that Parliament would make, and I can see the increasing logic for it. I mean, a few decades ago the Parliament had very little power. They didn't even have directly elected members. And also up until relatively recently, though possibly before you were born, you could have two jobs. You could be an MEP here, and you could be, you know, still a politician in your own country. And that changed. And all of that points to the huge increased powers that Parliament has been given. Now, one of those increased powers is that it is a co-legislator with the Council. And I think that's partly why it is now increasingly lobbied, obviously, because it's much more valuable to lobby it than it would have been, you know, 30 years ago. As for the power of initiative, I don't know. I mean, that's going to be something that's going to be fought in the political arena. But one thing, when you're talking about the – and well done on that – not an easy topic and not one that's going to be completed quickly, I would imagine, either. No. So the European Citizens Initiative, for example, is something that really should have enhanced democracy and the democratic legitimacy of the EU. And that came in about, I don't know, 10, 11, 12 years ago, whenever. And it's been – it hasn't been a great success. And again, that would have given, in a way, the power of initiative to the people, that if you got so many signatures and the Commission accepted a particular proposal, that would, could conceivably become law. But it always struck me that, you know, they didn't want anybody new in the legislative arena. The Commission held to itself its right to initiate. And so when this new creature emerged, the ECI, you know, it didn't really embrace it in the way that people would have liked to have it embraced. And I've always said that that's a pity because a lot of young people particularly get involved in that. It's a hell of a lot of effort, very bureaucratic. You have to get, I think, a million signatures from seven different member states. That's huge. And at least we have encouraged the Commission that if they do reject an ECI, that they give very good reasons for doing so. But good luck with that.
Nathalie Hubin
I'll come on this side. Yes, you on the – please.
Maria
Hello, my name is Maria. Hello, I'm Maria. I'm half Italian, half Ukrainian. I just graduated from European law at Massey University. And my question was actually referring back to what you talk about offering after the complaint about the internship and the paid internship. So my question was as long as it could be said to some extent that already education as long as a lot of countries is not financed by the government, so it could be said that it's a privilege. How can we say that it's not possible to create a rule or a law in which to follow, for example, an European career, there should be at least a coverage of the basic needs to avoid the discrimination based on economic backgrounds or this kind of discrimination that you talk about? Thank you.
Emily O’Reilly
Yeah, I mean, that's a good question. And I mean, it's all part of sort of, I suppose, the evolving sort of social agenda of the EU. I mean, for many decades, of course, it's focused on the market and all of that. But increasingly, it has changed to that. And I think COVID had an impact on that because you could see now the move to have a more even though health is a member state competence, you can see moves by the EU to make it more of an EU centre competence. The extent that you can do that without a treaty change, I don't know. But I agree with you about education, because ECD was probably expensive. No, not that expensive.
If you compare it to UK, it was grand.
Oh, yeah, cheap. Okay, I know, I know. But the UK is ridiculous. Not the UK, is ridiculous. The UK is ridiculous. Yeah, and then you go to some countries and it's virtually free. It's extraordinary. Yeah. And you're right. So European citizens, students in some states are extremely privileged and others not so much. So that's something you can lobby your MEP about and get it going. But I mean, this is where these things start. Yeah, you started, you know, me thinking about this, I'll probably mention somewhere else. I'm not going to say, look, I'm not going to change the world. But you know, that's how things happen. They emerge in fora like this, and then they develop a little bit more, whatever. And you know, maybe in 200 years time, we'll have it. No, I know, I'm optimistic it will happen sooner than that. But the point is well founded.
Nathalie Hubin
Great. It's fantastic to see so many questions. So I think this next round, I'll group a couple. So maybe we can start with the gentleman over there and then move around the room.
Willem
Thank you. I would like to ask, I'm Willem, I come from the Czech Republic, and I'll be studying in the Netherlands next year. My question is, does the EU Ombudsman have any role in the legislative conflict between member states and the Commission, for example, when it comes to human rights abuses in Poland or Hungary? Thank you.
Nathalie Hubin
Great. Another question. We'll just group them. Yes, in front.
Andrew
Hello. My name is Andrew. I'm from the Republic of Moldova. And my question was about the, like how we are far from the level of Europe about human rights, about my country. It's really interesting. Thank you.
Nathalie Hubin
Take one more. Anyone on this? No? Yes, please.
Georgia
Okay. Hello, I'm Georgia from the Czech Republic. I study law in Prague. And I would like to ask a very simple question. Who oversees you as a European Ombudsman? Because I think one of the more interesting aspects is the institutions that are supposed to oversee and control that the administration is well built and not get corrupted are, well, could be also corrupted. So how do you make sure that that doesn't happen?
Emily O’Reilly
Okay, I better answer the last question first. Well, I report to the European Parliament and specifically to the Petitions Committee and any agency, the European Court of Auditors, you know, Olaf, any of them can investigate me just as they would investigate anybody else. So yeah, that's the answer. I'm not up there with nobody sort of supervising me. There's plenty of supervision. So don't worry about that. In relation to member states and the Commission, not, it was you, sir, who asked that. Yeah. Obviously not directly. Where it would come in would be, let's say, somebody had claimed an infringement of EU law concerning Poland or Hungary or any country, okay? And nothing was done about it. The Commission didn't do anything or didn't respond or anything like that. Well, where I would come in would be if a complaint were made to me, then I would query the Commission's role in that. I'd ask it, well, why have you not opened an infringement case? Have you responded to these people? I mean, it's not for me to decide whether they should or they shouldn't, but what it is for me to decide is whether they have handled the process properly. I mean, for example, this is a very trivial matter compared to some of the matters that you're talking about, but there was a case in which a complaint was made in relation to the four big soccer football clubs in Spain. And the complaint was that the tax breaks that were being given by the Spanish government to those football teams, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atletico, Bilbao, and the fourth one I can never remember, were amounted to state aid, which is not allowed. And so it so happened that the Commissioner in charge of this at the time was Spanish, but five years had passed, I think, without anything being done. So, a complaint was made to me and I wrote to the Commission and said, it's a long time and the perception isn't good. And so they actually initiated a state aid investigation into that. Now I wasn't asking them to do that. I was just asking them to make up their mind. So equally, if you can make a parallel with something in the area in which you are talking about.
Moldova. Yes, well, certainly more people are aware of Moldova and thinking about Moldova and Moldova's future than possibly has been the case for a very, very long time. And obviously for sad reasons, which is the Russian invasion of Ukraine and concerns about Moldova and all of that. There is a lot happening. I hope you are pleased with that. I can't say anything more other than the politics of the EU will determine a lot of what happens to Moldova. And equally, Moldova has to play its part. In relation to the Parliament, of course, next year will be interesting. It's approximately just about a year from now that the European elections will take place. And sorry, did you want to say something else?
About… I understood that it's a huge topic and about smaller things, but linked to Moldovans and others, the same questions, the question I asked to Mrs. Metsola about what do you think as ombudsman about us, Moldovans, I don't know, Albanians or other people from, not from EU, who can't, for example, vote, but live here in Europe for several years, live are already Europeans. Me, for example, I live in Italy. I’m already like Italian people, person. And so for those people who are from outside Europe, living in Europe or bringing something to their countries from Europe. So what can you say and what can you do as a European ombudsman?
Probably very little. Yeah, yeah.
Could I just ask you what did Madam Metsola say? It could give me a clue.
That is important. It's an important question. Today. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's an important question.
Well, at least we didn't say it's an unimportant question. But yeah, I mean, look, I can imagine there's a huge behind the scenes talk going on, going on about this. It's whatever the political dynamic is at the time that's going to determine this. The point I was going to make about the next European elections was that at the moment, looking at elections that are taking place all across Europe, the right, the centre right are, you know, so that's going to have an impact, obviously, on the direction of the European Parliament. That's very important. None of these things, you can't stop for five seconds at the moment in politics and, you know, the history that is unrolling every single day. But at least Moldova is part of the conversation now.
Nathalie Hubin
Great. I'm being mindful of the time. So this will be the final round. We'll group them all together. If we can start over here.
Maros Tipperalex
Thank you so much. My name is Maros Tipperalex. I'm from Hungary and I'm 16 years old. I'm part of a student's movement. It's called Adam. We fight almost 10 years for a student-centred education. And my question is right this. In Hungary, we have a big problem like the people, they're from another group of people, they are gypsies. These students are studying segregation. And it's a very big problem in Hungary. And my question is what the EU and what the European Ombudsman can do with this?
Emily O’Reilly
Yeah, I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, you ask.
Nathalie Hubin
So, yes, you're right here.
Elisa
So first, I'm Elisa. I'm from Italy. First, thank you for your work. I think it's very precious. But from the side of the civil society, I think you're aware there is a lot of frustration when it comes to access to information, access to data. Like I'm thinking of, as you were mentioning, Frontex is responding with files that are 90% blackout. There is a huge problem of transparency about the recovery funds, at least from, let's say, from the ground, from somebody that tries really to have data. In Italy, we haven't had clear data about the projects for more than one year. It just has been released without any announcements or without knowing that it was coming. So it's really frustrating. And yeah, I was wondering how much you are in touch with the civil society, if you have consultation, if you have open dialogues, also with youth, or if you only take direct inquiries. Thank you.
Emily O’Reilly
Okay. On Hungary. You're talking about Roma people? Yeah, I remember when I was Irish Ombudsman, I would have a lot of contact with the ombudsmen in countries in which there were large Roma populations. I remember there was one particular Ombudsman, this is going quite a lot back, who actually at one point actually took Roma people into his office because they were homeless. It was such a particular issue happening at that time. And certainly I remember it being a very significant part of the conversations we would have in the network in relation to that discrimination, that segregation, and so on. The way in which, I mean, it's interesting the way you put it. So they are in segregated schooling. And so this is a government thing, is it? Or is it their own choice? Who's responsible for the segregation?
Maros Tipperalex
It's working like, you know, the
Emily O’Reilly
In effect, it happens like that. Is that it? Yeah. So there's a law that says anything? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Maros Tipperalex
No, it's work like the Roma, Roma's child study in another class than the Hungarians. And some of these child, kids have less opportunity to break up the wall and have a career and a nice life because they-
Emily O’Reilly
Don't get off to a great start. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, it's interesting. I can't give you an absolute answer, but the parallel I would make, and please do get in touch with our office and we will take a look at that and see to what extent we could find a way in. Let me tell you how we find a way in relation to the institutionalization of people with disabilities, whether mental or physical disabilities. The- Under- The EU has a policy whereby- of deinstitutionalization. In other words, people who have previously been in an institution should be enabled to live with their families or in the community. And we've had several complaints in relation to the fact that EU money is still being spent to help to refurbish these places or whatever. And we've done a lot of work on that. So we're not looking at what the authorities in the actual country are doing. We're looking at whatever EU agency, commission, DG is in charge, how that is happening. So if we can find a link, there always has to be a link. It has to be with some EU body, then we'll see. But you know, if you want to give more information or links to my colleague there, you'd be more than welcome. Okay.
There was the access to documents. Who asked that question? Ah, yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, it's hugely difficult. We have done a lot of work on this. We recently did a big report on the delays, not just at preliminary level, but when there's a review and it can take way over the statutory guidelines. And my view is that it is essentially a cultural problem, that there is a culture, let's say, within the Commission that does not prioritise fast access to documents. And that is overly cautious. And so when you look at the lifecycle of a complaint, and certainly one that's under review by the Commission, it just goes in endless loops of bureaucracy. So we're thinking of taking another step in relation to that entire issue, which we will probably announce in a few weeks time. But during this last, because the regulation 1049, which is the regulation that, as you know, is the access to documents regulation, that was created in 2021, sorry in 2001 and hasn't been revised since. So therefore it predates so much of the social media technology and other technology that has come into play since then. So it's sort of slightly anti-deluvian. But we have been unable to find strong political champions to push this, to push for the sort of access to documents regime that is intended for the citizens under the treaty. So when something like that is difficult for me, for my office, we do get some changes, some incremental changes. But unless you have a coalition of forces, you need people like you, you need civil society, you need media, you need member states pushing, but you also need political champions here. And if you're lacking that, it's very difficult to change. Frontex as well, we've had a lot of issues with them in relation to the way they make things so difficult for people to access to the point where unless you're very determined, you're going to give up.
In relation to the recovery funds, we commissioned a study from the OECD in relation to how ombudsman could make and others could make the spending and distribution of those funds more transparent. Because and we've had dealt with individual complaints, people seeking access to the recovery fund plans from individual member states. And unfortunately, there was no, as I understand it, there was no legal requirement to make the spending transparent. It seems extraordinary because it's a huge amount of money, obviously, for this a huge amount of money, there's the potential for corruption. It would be in the EU's interest that other people can keep an eye on the money. You can't expect a small group of civil servants to be looking at everything in every country.
So yeah, I know the Parliament did do something in relation to that a few months ago in relation to trying to make it more transparent. But look, I can't give you any happy answer, just as something that we keep working very hard on. So thank you for your question.
Nathalie Hubin
Unfortunately, we will not be able to answer any more questions. I just got the sign that there's another session that will start, so we need to head out. So first, I would like to thank the ombudsman for being here with us today and for answering all of our questions. Thank you.
Thank you all for being here and attending the session. If you didn't get a chance to ask your question, I do encourage you to still get into contact with us. You can also follow us on our Instagram, LinkedIn, or Twitter account, or also through our website. So finally, thank you. And for those watching online, thank you for following. Have a great afternoon, everyone.