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Transcript of this video

Shada Islam

Hello everyone and good morning! What a wonderful energy in this room, it’s dynamic, it’s vibrant, it’s very very good. Welcome to the fourth edition of the European Ombudsman Award for Good Administration!

And it’s wonderful to be back to real life but welcome also to those of you who join us online, thank you very much all for being here. I’m Shada Islam and it’s my great pleasure and my privilege to walk you through to moderate this ceremony here today. So we’re going to start and show you all the 57 nominated projects. Then there’ll be the overall winner and also the winner of the popular vote. That is very very important and very very dynamic indeed. And we’ll be livestreamed, we’ll be livestreamed on Twitter, on LinkedIn and on Youtube and also on the European Ombudsman website. And we all want you to go on social media the hashtag is #EUAward and engage, engage, and engage. This is a very important event and it’s very exciting. So be there, be dynamic and be with us!

Now, it’s my pleasure to give the floor to Emily O’Reilly, the European Ombudsman, to open this ceremony. Emily, floor is yours.

Emily O’Reilly

Thank you Shada, thank you everybody. It’s not that often I get applauded by the administration, but that’s lovely and thank you very much and good morning!

So, President Metsola, colleagues, friends and everyone gathered here today in person and online, a very warm welcome to you all as we gather in this beautiful Solvay Library here in Brussels to celebrate your work through our fourth iteration of the European Ombudsman Awards for Good Administration. This idea was born out of a wish not just to recognise the incredible work that the EU administration does, often unseen, but also to share best practice among the institutions, agencies, bodies and offices, and to project a fairer and a more accurate image of those who work in the EU administration than the one we sometimes see caricatured by Euro sceptics and by those hostile to the EU itself.

As Ombudsman, my office of course deals with complaints and with mistakes made by the EU administration.

But in doing so, I try to act not as a critic, but rather as a critical friend, someone who sees the flaws but never loses sight of the overarching impulse of the EU administration to do its best for EU citizens and indeed for many others.

In my view, it is not just good that the EU seeks to have the highest standards of accountability, transparency and general administration, but it is increasingly vital, even at a global level, that it does so.

We have to be not just an economic force in the world, we have to be a moral force. And that thought needs to be embedded in the DNA of everything we do.

If even small things are overlooked, if bad practices become normalised, we will awake one day and find our democracy shredded because the public institutions intended to be the robust scaffolding of that democracy have been hollowed out, have been delegitimised.

Events like this matter not just to the people who are here, not just to the people who are watching it, but on a wider scale. It seeks to remind people of why good administration matters and what it can achieve when well supported and with people of drive and imagination, constantly striving to bring it to the next level.

Over the next few hours, you will see the results of that drive, imagination and striving.

I thank everyone who took the time to enter. I thank my advisory board, who you shall hear from later. I thank my own wonderful colleagues who put all of this together.

And finally, I thank very much President Metsola for accepting our invitation to be here today and to give her appreciation of what you collectively do.

President Metsola, the floor is yours.

Roberta Metsola

Thank you very much.

Good morning, dear Ombudsman O'Reilly, dear Emily, dear colleagues, I would start by thanking our Ombudsman Emily O'Reilly and her team for all your work, often thankless that your office does.

I am grateful to the Ombudsman for her personal and institutional commitment to high standards and their importance in supporting democracy.

The work of the Ombudsman is important.

It is critical to building trust with citizens and ensuring an avenue for redress, in ensuring fairness and correctness and in making sure that people do not fall through the cracks in our processes.

So I am very happy to be able to join you at today's ceremony to reward the good administrative practices and to recognise actions by the European Union Public Service that have had a positive impact across European Union Member States.

Our European Union Administration understands its responsibility and we will live up to it. And that is why at the European Parliament we are rolling out a package of reforms that will boost the integrity of our systems, make decision-making more transparent and strengthen the Parliament.

We have implemented a cooling-off period and a revolving door policy for Members of the European Parliament.

This had been on the table for almost two decades.

We have ensured more checks on interest representatives.

We have ended so-called friendship groups that could lead people to confuse official Parliament activities with their own.

We have revised our rules on former Members.

We have introduced training and awareness-raising campaigns.

We have enforced new rules on foreign interference and boosted our fight against corruption.

Next month we will introduce changes on protection against harassment and present new whistle-blowing rules and before summer, we will have a report on updated rules of procedure.

Discussions on a new EU ethics body will kick off in the next few days.

We have shown that we can change, we can reform and we can do so in a manner that is consistent with our European ethos. And these were only a first step.

The next step would be the biggest reform the European Parliament has done in a generation.

We are discussing this at the moment and I hope we will return next year with a more modern, more open and more efficient Parliament.

And it is only fitting that the Ombudsman's Office should encourage and champion best practices and ideas across all our EU institutions that it is doing today.

When I was elected President of the European Parliament I had said that my goal was to recapture the enthusiasm and belief in the European projects.

To do this we must be transparent. To do this we must be more modern. We must modernise. And to do this we must reform and regenerate.

Tackling corruption, fighting disinformation and scrutinising maladministration that seek to jeopardise the very core of our democratic foundations is crucial for Europe's credibility in an era of poly-crisis.

Now more than ever we must all play a part in beefing up Europe's global political power that is based on democratic values.

Today's Ombudsman Award of Good Administration recognises those achievements and the calibre of those nominated today is extremely high.

I would like to applaud the remarkable work that they have done. Congratulations and thank you.

Shada Islam

Thank you very much Madam President for those inspiring words.

We now have the honour of presenting the 57 excellent projects from across the EU administration.

Virtually all the teams that have put forward the projects are in this room which is really, really very good.

So they have been divided into five categories which are excellence in citizen-oriented delivery, excellence in communications, excellence in diversity and inclusion, excellence in innovation and excellence in open administration.

For each category we will first present the nominees, then the finalists and ultimately the winner.

So I'm going to ask you to save your applause until I have named all projects in each category. They're all inspiring and they all merit applause but you know we have time constraints so we'll do it at the end of each category.

So without further ado let me proceed to the first category.

And the first category is as I said excellence in citizen-oriented delivery. We have 11 nominees and here come the projects.

Project number 10: Promoting civic monitoring for EU environmental enforcement from the Commission's joint research centre.

Sensing for Justice explores how evidence gathered by citizens can be used for enforcing environmental law. It has produced scientific studies on the factors that facilitate the acceptance of citizen-gathered evidence in court and offer training as well for environmental mediators on civic monitoring.

Project number 12: The European Year of Youth putting young people centre stage from the Commission's DG education and culture.

So 2022 was designated the European Year of Youth as a way of thanking young Europeans for their sacrifices during the difficult Covid-19 period. By the beginning of 2023 the campaign reached over 171 million Europeans via social media.

Project number 22: Fighting wildfires in Europe, the Commission's DG ECHO. The EU experienced one of its worst wildfire seasons in 2022.

DG ECHO organised the deployment of EU planes and helicopters as well as hundreds of European firefighters.

Project number 23: Providing life-saving support for the people of Ukraine, also for the Commission's DG ECHO.

DG ECHO has been providing humanitarian aid including food, shelter, energy and medical care to people in Ukraine. It also coordinated medical evacuations of over 1,700 Ukrainian patients to European hospitals.

Project number 27: Helping civil society document core international crimes from Eurojust and the International Criminal Court.

The guidelines for documenting international crimes and human rights violations for criminal accountability purposes will help civil society organisations to collect and preserve information so that it is admissible evidence in courts.

Project number 29: Ensuring the European Parliament communicates clearly in 24 languages from the European Parliament's DG for translation.

The European Parliament launched a citizen's language policy to help parliamentarians and officials make their communication with citizens clearer and to improve the clarity of legislative and procedural texts.

Project number 33: An online platform for the Conference on the Future of Europe from the Commission's DG Com.

The online platform for the Conference on the Future of Europe provided a central location for conference-related contributions from online debates and grassroots events held across Europe.

Project number 40: Free Wi-Fi hotspots across Europe from the Health and Digital Executive Agency.

The Wi-Fi for EU initiative provides free Wi-Fi in public spaces across Europe. 93,000 hotspots are currently installed in over 7,250 municipalities. There was a peak of 7 million users in August 2022.

Project number 46: Public buyers working together to procure sustainable solutions from the Commission's DG GROW.

The Big Buyers for Climate Environmental Initiative promotes collaboration between cities, central purchasing bodies and other public authorities in the strategic procurement of sustainable solutions.

Project number 50: Protecting EU recovery funds from organized crime and fraudsters from Europol.

The Next Generation EU Law Enforcement Forum facilitates cooperation between EU member states, EU institutions and international organizations to protect EU COVID-19 recovery funds from falling into the hands of criminals.

Project 52: Providing reliable information on COVID-19 rules in different EU countries from the Commission's Joint Research Centre.

ReOpenEU is an online platform, an app, providing information on COVID-19 travel restrictions, health measures and the EU Digital COVID Certificate in EU and Schengen-associated countries.

That's that from me. I will now invite you, Emily, to come here and announce the shortlist.

Emily O’Reilly

Fantastic list of projects. I remember at the first time we did this several years ago and we were here and I remember being struck by how surprised everybody was about the range of projects that their colleagues were doing.

Even though we all work in the administration, we're not always aware of what everybody else is doing.

This is a wonderful opportunity to showcase what everybody is doing right across Europe.

Anyway, very difficult to shortlist. Let alone choose a winner.

But anyway, the shortlist is:

Project 10: sensing for justice, promoting civic monitoring for EU environmental enforcement from the Joint Research Centre.

Project 22: fighting wildfires in Europe, the European Commission DGECO.

Project 27: helping civil society to document core international crimes, that's Eurojust and the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.

And Project 33: the online platform for the Conference on the Future of Europe, the European Commission DGCOM.

So well done to all those shortlisters.

And the winner is, I'm not sure we have a drum roll, but anyway, imagine one, okay.

So the winner is Project 27, helping civil society document core international crimes, Eurojust and the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.

Shada Islam

Congratulations. Congratulations from me as well.

Wonderful to meet you. Just a couple of questions to understand how the challenges you faced when you were doing it.

It's a very important task. Very, very crucial task for us, especially in democracies.

We need to know what happened.

So what were the main challenges that you faced when you were coming up with this procedure?

Matevz Pezdirc

Well, first of all, where to start, because it was quite a wide range of various topics we want to cover.

And of course, it really came from as a sort of request from civil society organizations working in Ukraine to say, of course, looking to Eurojust, to the ICC and saying, do you have any sort of manual that could help us? And on that basis, we were basically kind of in parallel trying to work and then of course realize it's better if we join forces and we put these sort of guidelines together.

Shada Islam

Right. And so if I could ask you, Kristina, so which are the organizations that are using these guidelines that you've drawn up?

Cristina Ribeiro

Well, we are now in the project of implementing the guidelines. So we have been reaching out to civil society organizations who are actually keen developing the project with us, meaning we had consultations and it's an ongoing project. So the most important of it is that is a first step for a further dialogue between us, accountability mechanisms with civil society on how can we work together to fight impunity.

So pretty much most of the organizations are in some way of dialoguing with us about the guidelines, how can we improve them and hopefully applying them in many conflict situations where they will be preserving key evidence, both for the ICC and also for national mechanisms here in Europe.

Shada Islam

Thank you very much. So let's give another hand of applause to the winners of this category. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

So it's now my pleasure to give you the details of the second category, which is, as I had said, excellence in communications for which there are 16 nominated projects. And here they are.

Project number 3, this is in the sequences that these projects arrived at the Ombudsman Office.

Project number 3: explaining the benefits of EU law to citizens from the Commission's Legal Service.

The Commission's Legal Service has put together a book explaining how 70 years of legal integration have benefited EU citizens. Each chapter is a collective effort by a different team of the Legal Service to outline the impact of EU law in different fields.

Project number 11: educating people about how new technologies affect their privacy from the European Data Protection Supervisor.

The EDPS developed Techsonar to educate people about the implications of new technology for their personal data. It provides citizens with independent information so they can assess new technologies without relying on industry-provided information.

Project number 21: EU in my region campaigns from the Commission's DG REGIO.

There have been over 65 EU in my region campaigns in 12 member states since 2018. The campaigns address important local topics and engage with popular personalities to showcase ways in which the EU is making a positive difference in EU regions.

Project number 24: connecting Europeans to the EIT ecosystem from the European Institute of Innovation and Technology.

Innoveit Weeks was organized at 10 locations across Europe to bring together key players from research, business and education to discuss current and future challenges in key policy areas.

Project number 30: showing how EU humanitarian aid is helping the Ukrainian people from the Commission's DG Echo. DG Echo is carrying out a communications campaign to show Europeans what the EU is doing to deliver life-saving aid to civilians harmed by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The campaign included interviews with refugees and highlighted EU deliveries to the Ukrainian counterparts.

Project number 32: showing EU solidarity with Ukraine from the Commission's DG Com.

The Commission's communications department quickly developed materials to show EU solidarity with Ukraine. The EU's Europe Direct Contact Centres also established a hotline in Ukrainian and in Russian to provide practical information to people fleeing the war.

Project number 34: EU teams up with UEFA to protect the climate from the Commission's DG Com.

The European Commission teamed up with UEFA to raise awareness about the climate crisis. The advertising campaign featured famous footballers showing how simple changes in our daily lives can help the fight against climate change.

Project number 35: new digital exhibition on the European Commission's work from the Commission's DG Com.

Experience Europe is the Commission's new digital info centre and its first multimedia exhibition in Brussels. The exhibition features examples of how the Commission's work benefits EU citizens.

Project number 36: social media community managers engaging with EU citizens from the Commission's DG Com.

DG Com community managers are working to show that the Commission listens and interacts with the public through social media. Community managers engage online audiences, encourage feedback and answer citizens' questions.

Project number 38: helping EU citizens understand monetary policy in times of high inflation from the European Central Bank.

The European Central Bank worked to make its communications on monetary policy easier to understand. The introductory statement given by its president at the regular press conference has been replaced with a less complicated and more narrative-driven monetary policy statement.

Project number 43: a virtual celebration of Ukraine's Vyshyvanka Day.

Delegation of the EU to Ukraine has sent this project. The EU delegation to Ukraine organized a virtual celebration of Vyshyvanka Day, which focuses on traditional Ukrainian embroidered clothing. They created a unique visual identity to help people celebrate the day even if they were far from home.

Project number 44: informing EU citizens about their fundamental rights from the Commission's DG Just.

The #RightHereRightNow campaign informs Europeans about their fundamental rights and how to use them. The campaign website also tells visitors how to seek redress if their rights are breached.

Project number 45: optimising hybrid communications in the European Parliament from the Parliament's DG for logistics and interpretation for conferences.

The #BeHeard campaign works to ensure good quality audio and interpretation for hybrid European Parliament meetings so that EU citizens can better follow the democratic process.

Project number 47: virtual classroom visits to the Court of Justice of the European Union sent in by the Court of Justice.

The Court of Justice has started organising virtual visits for secondary school students from across Europe. Students also have the opportunity to share their ideas in Europe with a judge or an advocate general.

Project number 48: podcasts providing an inside look at Europol operations submitted by Europol.

The Europol podcast tells the stories of Europol operations through the officers who were there. One special episode describes how staff from Europol alongside the Swedish National Police and the US FBI carried out one of Europol's largest ever operations.

Project number 53: teaching Europeans about food safety from the European Food Safety Agency.

#EUChooseSafeFood is a campaign to raise awareness about the EU's food safety system. A website provides information on food safety and delivers tailored content to local audiences. Global campaign activities include a video bringing together scientists and celebrity chefs.

Communications was, as you can hear, the category with the greatest number of projects. It's now time to announce the projects who have made the short list.

Ombudsman?

Emily O’Reilly

Thank you very much, Shada. Thank you, everybody. And yes, sometimes the EU's criticized for not communicating adequately with citizens, but we can certainly see from that fabulous array of projects the wonderful efforts that are made to do exactly that.

So the shortlisted of projects for the communications category are:

Project 32, showing EU solidarity with Ukraine, the European Commission, DG Communication.

Project 38, helping EU citizens understand monetary policy in times of high inflation, the European Central Bank.

Project 45, optimising hybrid communications in the European Parliament, the European Parliament.

And project 47, virtual classroom visits to the Court of Justice of the European Union, the European Court of Justice.

Well done, everybody. Well done.

And the winner is, project 32, showing EU solidarity with Ukraine, the European Commission, DG Communication. Please!

Thank you very much, everybody.

Shada Islam

Please look at the camera.

So before you go, a quick question to whoever wants to answer it. So how important was it? How important? Thank you. How important was it to actually do this campaign and to show the solidarity to Europeans, the solidarity with the Ukrainians?

Elisaveta Dimitrova

It was incredibly important. And I think the name of the work and what we did here, the team speaks for itself.

And probably anybody who would have thought about the Ukrainians and what they do, how they symbolise the strength and the resilience and how they teach us Europeans to be full of solidarity, help each other and be there to give a hand to those most in need is what inspired us. It was pure compassion and deep conviction that we are doing the right thing as Europeans and as civil servants that drove us to make all this information to save lives and to give the opportunity to those in need to build their lives here in Europe, I think a beacon of peace and security that we all offer. And as administration, I think we should be proud that we all worked around this theme because it was not only this team here to whom I'm grateful, but it was the whole commission and the many institutions here whose materials we tried to centralize in this hub and give the Ukrainians the opportunity to come here and build their lives anew.

Shada Islam

Thank you very much. Thank you very much indeed. And how did it differ from other campaigns? More emotion, more compassion?

Elisaveta Dimitrova

Well, it was the campaign that was actually telling people how to come to Europe and set up their lives. It was giving them the very details of information and our colleagues in Echo who were on the border and were helping to give this information to the Ukrainians were leading them to this web hub. And our colleagues in the centre answering questions in Ukrainian and Russian were those that were telling real people how to get the security, social security, set up a housing and start schooling for their children. So it is an emotional thing for the whole team here without whom this would have been impossible. And they did that overnight.

Shada Islam

Bravo. Thank you very much indeed.

So I'm back.

The next category is excellence in inclusion and diversity.

There are 8 projects in this category and the projects are:

Project number 7: Supporting the rights of the LGBTQI plus community from the parliament's liaison office in Milan.

This office in Milan together with Bped, Milano Cultural Association, organized a dance-theatre show in 2022 to raise awareness about the rights of the LGBTQI+ community. The show encouraged reflection on coexistence in an inclusive manner.

Project number 8: DiscoverEU becomes more inclusive from the commission's DG Education and Culture.

DiscoverEU, which gives 18 year old residents of the Erasmus plus program countries the opportunity to travel around by train for up to one month, is taking steps to become more inclusive. Youngsters facing difficulties have the chance to receive extra support while traveling.

Project number 16: Positive Action Programme for Trainees with a Disability from the Council of the EU.

The council implemented a pilot positive action program for trainees with a disability. Between 2020 and 2022, 13 trainees with physical, mental, intellectual and sensory impairments worked in 10 different departments. The programme has since become permanent.

Project 19: Disabilities Awareness Week from the European Court of Auditors.

The European Court of Auditors organized the Disabilities Awareness Week for the second time in 2022. The week featured a series of webinars, workshops and events which were open to staff from all EU institutions and agencies.

Project number 26: Diversity and Inclusion Survey 2021 from the European Commission and the European External Action Service.

A diversity and inclusion survey helped the Commission, its executive agencies and the External Action Service to learn about the diversity of their staff and to use this data for human resources, policies and raise awareness. The Commission then put together an action plan on staff diversity and building an inclusive workplace.

Project number 28: Initiatives Supporting Ukrainian Civil Society from the European Economic and Social Committee.

The EESC has been working to help civil society organizations in Ukraine and in the EU to provide relief to Ukrainians. Since the start of Russia's invasion, the EESC has allowed Ukrainian NGOs to use its premises and logistical equipment.

Project number 42: Helping Staff with Disabilities Find Accessible EU Delegations.

European External Action Service has sent this project. Thanks to a new fact sheet and video, EU staff with disabilities now know how the 139 EU delegations fare when it comes to accessibility. The fact sheet has information on floors, elevators and parking, as well as details about doctors and on-site healthcare.

Project number 55: Working with Children to Produce a New EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child from the Commission's DG Just.

The EU strategy on the rights of the child with design with children and for children. The team at DG Just received over 10,000 replies to an online questionnaire. They also met with children, that must have been fun, after the strategy's adoption to explain what was included and why.

Ombudsman, your turn now to please announce the shortlist.

Emily O’Reilly

Thank you, Shada.

This is actually the first time we have this particular category in our awards and we were so impressed with the quality of the work that you're all doing and thank you for sending in those projects which will have so many people.

So the shortlisted projects for the inclusion and diversity category are:

Project 8, Discover EU Becomes More Inclusive at the European Commission DG Education, Youth, Sport and Culture.

Project 16, Positive Action Program for Trainees with a Disability in the Council.

Project 26, Diversity and Inclusion Survey 2021, the European Commission and the European External Action Service.

And Project 42, Helping Staff with Disabilities Find Accessible EU Delegations at the European External Action Service.

And the winner is, project 16, Positive Action Program for Trainees with a Disability in the Council.

Shada Islam

Thank you. Don't leave. Welcome and congratulations, friends, because you are friends.

Indeed, it's really a great pleasure to have you here. So give us a little bit more detail about this project.

Nathalie Pensaert

Well, this was a couple of years ago that we thought we wanted to do something really positive and a very proactive way of getting more people with disabilities in our buildings, also making it more visible. To be honest, the traineeships was the easiest way in terms of formalities, et cetera. And at the same time, I think it was very good for us also to show that the pipeline for new colleagues would include people with disabilities, so also towards youngsters to see this as possible. So this was the idea. I must also say that we've been really, really lucky with the trainees that we've had. They've really helped us to be open about it, educate their teams. The teams have been very welcoming and have been very good in not just looking at the individual coming, but also thinking we can fit people with disabilities in our team. It is possible. We need some adaptations, but actually it's very, very well possible. So I think that was also the change in mentality was very important for us. And the traineeships was a very easy, formal way to do that.

Shada Islam

Right. And what would be your experience that you could share, any lessons that you would give to other EU institutions that are trying to do the same thing or are in the process of doing the same thing?

Evgenia?

Evgenia Chatziioakeimidou

Thank you. Thank you very much for this distinction. I'm very proud. And we're really proud because thanks to our trainees, we have become wiser as an organization. We have become even more accessible. Of course, we have had challenges and everyone who starts such a project will have challenges to face because we realize how many things we should improve in terms of infrastructures, disability, and also mentalities and behaviours, as Natalie said. So what I would say is that don't shy away from the difficulties and the challenges. There might be legal obstacles, but everything can be sorted out. And it's really worth it, not just for those great, amazing trainees, those people, but also for us to become even better and more inclusive. Thank you so much, Shada.

Shada Islam

Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. And please take the seat and another hand of applause.

So thank you very much indeed for that as well. And our penultimate category is excellence in innovation.

And there are 11 projects in this category. I'm going to present them to you and I will start now.

Project number 1: Bringing together data and expertise on drug use in the EU from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.

The ESCAPE network gathers information about drug use and provides this data to analysts and experts. ESCAPE now has some 10 participating laboratories in over 10 European cities.

Project number 2: Boosting decision-making efficiency using IT from the Commission's DG Digit.

The Effort Value Matrix is a new IT tool for saving time and administrative costs by identifying the next priority a team should focus on. The aim is to get the most out of Commission resources.

Project 13: Fostering privacy and data protection rights through alternative social media platforms from the European Data Protection Supervisor.

The EDPS has launched a public pilot phase of two social media platforms, EU Voice and EU Video, that prioritise individuals and their right to privacy and data protection. There are no advertisements and no profiling of users on these platforms.

Project number 25: Building a future-proof EU agency in the digital era from the Community Plant Variety Office.

The Community Plant Variety Office is future-proof itself for the digital era. The agency has adapted its infrastructure and its equipment for sustained teleworking, facilitated the transition to the cloud, rolled out an extensive cyber security program.

Project number 31: EU Digital Covid Certificate from the Commission's DG Just, DG Connect and DG Sante.

The Commission created the EU Digital Covid Certificate as an easy way to demonstrate proof of Covid-19 vaccination, recovery or test status. When a Member State lifted travel restrictions for persons with proof of vaccination, test or recovery, the certificate guaranteed that all EU citizens could benefit from these exemptions.

Project number 37: Reducing red tape in cross-border administrative procedures from the Commission's DG GROW and DG Digit.

The once-only technical system lets EU public authorities exchange official documents and data at the request of citizens and businesses as part of cross-border administrative procedures, for example when registering an address of vehicle or when moving abroad.

Project number 39: Helping schools and teachers with digital tools and technologies from the Commission's DG EAC, DG Education and Culture from the Joint Research Centre and DG Employment. The online selfie tools support schools in the use of digital technologies. Questionnaires allow teachers and students to express their views on how technology is used at their school.

Project number 41: Improving treatment, guidance and reducing mortality for people who use opioids from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.

The Optimus network focuses on improving opioid treatment practice by developing expert guidance and outcome indicators. This helps improve the lives of people who use opioids and reduces stigma.

Project number 49: Enhancing police cooperation through technology sharing from Europol.

The Europol tool repository promotes enhanced cooperation among law enforcement authorities in Europe by providing an online platform for them to share their non-commercial, cost-free software with each other.

Project number 54: Creating a mix of innovative work environments from the Council of the EU.

The New Ways of Working pilot project creates innovative work environments for staff to improve performance and collaboration. Staff are also provided with training opportunities to develop new ways of working.

Project number 56: Making it easier to find information on joint research centre collaboration agreements from the Commission's Joint Research Centre.

The HARMONIA tool makes it easier for researchers at the JRC to find information on collaboration agreements with strategic partners. This makes it easier for researchers to follow up on the results of collaborative projects.

Ombudsman, the floor is now yours. Would you please announce the finalists?

Emily O’Reilly

Another fantastic set of projects and obviously very difficult to judge given the breadth and the range.

But anyway, the shortlisted projects for the innovation category are:

Project 13, fostering privacy and data protection rights through alternative social media platforms. That's the European Data Protection Supervisor.

Project 31, the EU Digital Covid Certificate from the European Commission. DG Just, connect and santé.

Project 37, reducing red tape and cross-border administrative procedures. The European Commission DGs GROW and Digit.

Project 41: improving treatment guidance and reducing mortality for people who use opioids at the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.

Well done everybody.

And the winner is:

Project 31, the EU Digital Covid Certificate from the European Commission. Well done.

Shada Islam

You're getting a microphone as well.

So a lot of pressure. You were working under a lot of pressure at that time because we were all in lockdown and working was not the normal way. So what was it like?

Jan Rohde-Stadler

It was as you said, Shada, it was an interesting period. I mean, when we're here, we come together, no mask, no. It's already a long time ago. It's very difficult to put yourself back into that situation. But you were right, it's a lockdown baby. We were all coming together online. It took several months until many project members saw each other for the first time in real life. But still, I think it showed also that the EU institutions, not just us, but also the European Parliament, the member states, if they come together, have a shared political vision, the EU institutions can deliver incredibly quickly because it took from conception at the European Council level to the rollout just three months. Because it was a shared goal, have something for EU citizens to travel again in the summer of 2021. And with that shared vision, we were able to deliver. And it's not just us, as I mentioned, it's many other colleagues in the Commission, but also in the other institutions.

Shada Islam

And travel we did. We travelled a lot indeed. Thank you for that. So what was the obstacle? Obviously, you couldn't see each other. So what were the lessons that you learned from this sort of very tight schedule you were working on, the pressure you were under?

Konstantin Hyppönen

I think we all learned that we could deliver also in such a difficult situation and we could use digital tools in order to build a digital infrastructure using digital health, which was also important for people to understand that these tools are actually helping them to travel, helping them to reopen economy. And yeah indeed, I met some of my colleagues first time one year after the launch.

Shada Islam

Right. Valentina, anything you'd like to add?

Valentina Oberti

Well, it was for sure a great success. It was very good for all EU citizens and it was very good for us as well as citizens, especially for those who need to travel to see their families, to have a social life. It seems like it's a lot of time ago, but actually, still last year, we needed to go to the restaurant with the EU DCC. So yes, we have to be very proud all together, not just us, but we as European citizens, we have to be proud of what we reached as it has become the best and the most used solution for proof of vaccination tests and recovery worldwide. We're not only using it in Europe, we're using it in other 51 countries outside of Europe. And now it's going to be the basis for a global solution that will be taken up at world level by WHO.

Shada Islam

Thank you very much. A gold standard indeed. Thank you. I still have it on my phone. I'm sure you do as well.

So we've reached our final category, which is Excellence in Open Administration. And as with the previous category, there are 11 projects nominated. And as previously, I will read them out to you. And here they come.

Project number 4: Achieving excellence in budgetary and finance management from Frontex.

A team of Frontex staff has been nominated for the award in recognition of the sound budgetary and finance management, including timely payment processing for numerous contracts, carrying out budgetary control, sustained commitment and keeping of payment records.

Project number 5: Getting the EU standing core into uniform also from Frontex.

A team of Frontex staff has been nominated for the award in recognition of their work preparing a tender for uniforms for the first EU standing core. The same team also manage a contract for personal protection equipment.

Project number 6: Facilitating citizens’ access to EU documents from the Commission Secretariat General.

A new portal makes the process of requesting public access to European Commission documents easier, clearer and more transparent. The portal allows citizens to submit the request for access to documents.

Project number 9: EU Academy, online learning platform for the better implementation of EU policies from the Commission's JRC.

EU Academy is an EU-owned online learning hub to facilitate the understanding and implementation of EU policies. It provides a modern learning environment for people whose work is related to the EU's sphere of action.

Project number 14: Encouraging better project management in public administrations from the Commission's DG Digit.

A new methodology for project management known as PM² and developed by the Commission has been shared with member states. It's mostly targeted at public administrations in the EU and is useful for managing cross-institutional and cross-member state initiatives.

Project number 15: Making sustainable products the norm from the Commission's DG Environment, DG GROW and DG Energy.

Three Commission Directorates General created the “Ecodesign for Sustainable Product” regulation, a tool that aims to make all products on the EU market sustainable. A digital product passport will help citizens make informed purchasing choices.

Project number 17: Kohesio, discover EU projects in EU in your region.

The Commission's DG Regio has sent this project in. Launched in 2022, Kohesio is a knowledge database offering easy access to information on all projects and beneficiaries co-funded by the EU's Cohesion Policy.

It contains over 1.7 million projects and 500,000 beneficiaries.

Project number 18: Sharing labs to drive excellence and innovation from the JRC.

The JRC has opened its laboratories to researchers from around Europe to allow young students and scientific experts to do research that they could not do in their home country due to limited resources. Nearly 400 researchers from across Europe have benefited.

Project number 20: Guidance on compliance with the principles of good administration from the Parliament's DG Finance.

The compliance monitoring unit of the Parliament's Digi Finance created guidance documents for staff to help develop a culture of excellent service and administration. The unit has also launched compliance roundtables and newsletters which includes best practice for staff.

Project number 51: Helping EU tourism become greener, more digital and more resilient from the Commission's DG GROW.

Through a series of collaborative discussions, DG GROW worked with stakeholders to develop ways to make EU tourism sector greener, more digital and more resilient. DG GROW is also collecting stakeholder pledges for specific tourism-related actions.

Project number 57: International Product Safety Week from the Commission's Digi Just.

International Product Safety Week is a biennial event bringing together safety experts from around the world to tackle topical and emerging product safety issues. The 2022 event theme was New Horizons for Product Safety and included discussions on new market trends.

And now, Ombudsman, it's time to learn who the finalists are.

Emily O’Reilly

Thank you, thank you all and once again a fantastic showcasing of the diversity and innovation of the EU administration, so well done everybody.

So the shortlisted of projects for the Open Administration category are:

Project 14, encouraging better project management and public administration, the European Commission, DG Digit, I knew I wouldn't be able to say that properly, DG Digit.

Project 15, making sustainable products the norm, the European Commission, DG Environment, GROW and Energy.

Project 17, Kohesio, discovering EU projects in your own region, the European Commission, DG Regio.

And Project 18: sharing labs to drive excellence and innovation from the Joint Research Centre, so well done, well done.

And the winner is:

Project 17, Kohesio, discover EU projects in your region, the European Commission, DG Regio.

Shada Islam

Thank you. Couple of questions, microphone is here.

So is the database being used? Are you getting sort of feedback from people who are using it? Are they interested in what's being funded in their regions?

Alain Vanden Borre

Yes, sure, we receive feedback, we are also actively looking for feedback currently and we try to serve quite many purposes there. Of course, all people interested in information about EU projects, but also researchers and policy analysts.

Shada Islam

And I imagine also students and people who want to know more about the EU.

Alain Vanden Borre

Sure, members from the academic world as well.

Shada Islam

Right, and what were the technical obstacles or difficulties that you may have faced?

Roberto Musmeci

Yeah, I think it's a great project and it was also a great challenge to get all this data, which is about 1.8 million projects coming from 125 different data sources. So it was a huge effort in bringing all this data in one single place for all EU citizens to be able to browse all this project and finally understand what the EU Cohesion Policy is doing for the cities, for the territories and for them.

Shada Islam

So a great degree of satisfaction that this is all worked out and working well. Thank you very much.

Roberto Musmeci and Alain Vanden Borre

Thank you.

Shada Islam

Thank you very much.

Emily O’Reilly

Well done to all the category winners.

So before we announce the overall winner for this year's Award for Good Administration, I'd like to thank the members of the Advisory Board who looked so thoroughly through all of the nominees and have helped me enormously in picking today's winners. So at this time I would invite Chris Docksey, the Honorary Director General at the European Data Protection Supervisor, as well as Luxembourg Ombudsman Claudia Monti to join me on the stage please.

So the third member of the Board, Editor-in-Chief of EU4U, Marcus Moschovidis, wasn't able to be with us today but we'll hear from him a little later via video.

So first of all thank you both very much for all the hard work that you did.

A lot of work because a lot of the entries, you know, there's a lot of information to absorb and you have to compare and contrast and it's a very difficult task.

This is your third time doing it Chris. The overall evaluation both in relation to this year's edition and also your observations over the last number of years?

Chris Docksey

How long do I have for that? About two minutes.

You know each time there's been a theme that came out, not all the projects but a lot. So in 2019 it was climate change, in 2021 it was COVID and this time it's been Ukraine. So that's one thing that's been different.

But in terms of doing this three times, one thing that's been the same is that the short lists that you've seen and the winners, they're not the only excellent projects. This exercise shows so much excellence.

I had a look yesterday and I saw that in most cases there are projects out of 25 points that were within three points of the winner and they weren't even in the short list. So if your project didn't get in the short list or win today, do not be discouraged. They are really, really excellent.

Emily O’Reilly

Okay thank you.

Chris, obviously you're very familiar with the European Public Administration, you not so much but as a Member State Ombudsman you're obviously familiar with public administration generally.

So what struck you most when you were going through the projects in relation to your main observations in relation to them?

Claudia Monti

Thank you everybody for your amazing work you're doing because for me it's the first time and before being a member of this committee I really thought I know what you are doing but well I really didn't. I didn't know how passionate you are. I didn't know how much pain, how much tears, how much sweat and how much you needed steel nerves for doing the work you're doing.

Without you I wouldn't be here today because it would be impossible for me to take the train so easily to come from Luxembourg because I'm coming from Luxembourg, to come from Luxembourg here to Brussels. It wouldn't be so easy for me to use my iPhone, to use the apps, even institutions apps and as it was already said you all did an amazing work. Even those who are not being awarded today, I think we as citizens are not aware of what you are doing and that you are human beings because people are well like to complain more than just to say wow you did an amazing work and we as ombudsman do especially but without you and without the human beings here we wouldn't have all those accommodations that we have already not only that we can travel all around but also that we can go to the doctors that we understand the work they are doing.

You are the stakeholders in the shadow and I think it is very important that today you are all awarded and that you are at the limelight today that because without you we wouldn't all be here.

So just thank you all for being there.

Emily O’Reilly

Well done, well done. That was a lovely tribute.

Thank you both very much and now we hear just a brief video message from the youngest member of the advisory board from Marcos.

Do we have that?

Marcos Moschovidis (message video)

I want to begin my statement with two words. Thank you.

Thank you so much for putting in the work every single day to ensure that citizens across the European Union know that there are people in the institutions who care for them, who care about their issues, who care about their hardships and the many problems that they are facing every single day and who are doing their utmost to ensure that those problems are solved. Your efforts cannot be appreciated enough.

It was a great honour that I was given the chance to represent young people in the evaluation process through my project EU4U in collaboration with my great colleagues and to learn from the project, to learn about the project and also give the marks, which was frankly one of the hardest things I ever had to do.

All of them deserve to be heard more and all of them deserve to be reported about.

So, I would be extremely happy if you reach out to me after this event and we can discuss how to give them the audience they deserve through the project EU4U.

Again thank you.

Emily O’Reilly

Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you both. Thank you.

I know many of you are eager to get to the main event to learn who our overall prize winner is but we have some other important business to take care of first.

As you know we also held an online public vote to determine the most popular project.

There were over 11,000 votes.

We were delighted to see such strong participation and the public's favourite is:

Project 50: Protecting EU recovery funds from organized crime and fraudsters, Europol in cooperation with the Italian police.

Well done. Thank you.

Shada Islam

Get a microphone, and I will ask you a couple of questions. So can you give us a little more details about how this forum for exchanging information actually works in practise?

Giovanni Francesco D'Auria

Of course, in the first place thank you very much. This is an example of how the member states and the European level can actually literally work together. This was very difficult and very easy. It's a bit of a two elements coming together. The very difficult part was actually delivering the work. We had to put together intelligence informing governments where the most critical areas were. That was not easy. Of course nothing of this comes easy.

The easy part was bringing people together. This was an initiative of a member state. Europol was on board rather quickly. A matter of weeks all the member states unanimous. That was a great satisfaction and I would say thank you very much again.

Shada Islam

Yeah so just very curious. Is there a lot of criminal activity around this EU recovery fund? A lot of money.

Giovanni Francesco D'Auria

No comment.

Shada Islam

Come on give us a little bit.

Giovanni Francesco D'Auria

We are trying to do our best. Of course there is. Of course there are some people with bad intentions.

We are paid actually also for this reason. We earn our salary trying to avert this and we are actually succeeding by the way. So yes. Cheers.

Shada Islam

Okay well you are looking after our interests. That's very good.

I was just wondering also as you are working with the Italian police. Any other police across Europe that you intend to work with?

Giovanni Francesco D'Auria

We work with everybody. All the member states were involved literally strongly. The Italians were the ones who came up with the idea. As I said it was a matter of weeks and all the police, all the law enforcement, the competent authorities, it's not only the police forces came together. It was easy to call them up.

Shada Islam

Would you like to add something? Yes thank you.

Dafni Stampouli

I would like to say that it's very nice to see that the public appreciates the work that Europol does and how important it is for everyone working on this field. As we said before we are working with the member states, we are working with their countries trying to fight crime and seeing that this is recognized by the public and with this award it means a lot for everyone back at Europol that we represent today. Thank you.

Shada Islam

Thank you.

Emily O’Reilly

Okay we are going to torch you a little bit more actually before the end.

Those of you who have been here before will know that it has become something of a tradition to award a special prize for a project, something that is just a little bit outside the box.

So this year, we want to focus on a project that is bringing Europe closer to the next generation of its citizens, a project that offers them the opportunity to contribute to the EU policies that affect them and other young people and I am talking about project 55, working with children to produce a new EU strategy on the rights of the child, European Commission DG Just.

Well done.

Marie-Cécile Rouillon

Thank you. Thank you so much. And thank you for the amazing team that made that possible and more importantly thanks to children because children are one out of five EU citizens and with this project there were 10,000 children that were consulted to make a plan, we called it like this because we have also to speak the language of children, a plan for children in Europe with very concrete actions and this is also something that really needs a continuous endeavour. Yesterday we had like 60 children from all across Europe making a Mexican wave with the Commissioner and more importantly really speaking out and really telling what is important to them.

Voting is one of these, protection, what they are also living in their daily life. So indeed with all of this we really make also what we are doing in the EU stronger.

Thanks a lot and to Marta and the team.

Shada Islam

What impressed you the most in your interaction with the children? What impressed you the most about them? They were concerned about these huge events or was it their daily lives, going to school?

Marta Kuljon

No it was much more in fact. What impressed me most was their honesty and their patience with us, adults, because you know when children spoke they were really timely on the speech and sometimes when adults took the floor they took a bit longer to say what the message was.

Children really raised important issues and they did it in such a light way that it was easy to discuss them and there were issues like violence, were issues like voting, mental health. So all these issues that we discussed yesterday we are going to bring to our work, we are going to discuss with them further.

Shada Islam

And how easy was it to actually, the process, how easy or difficult was the process?

Winner a

So I will leave it to Marta because she was really the hands on here. I would also like to really thank all of the colleagues from all of the teachers that have also contributed to this process, so the Directorate General, the European Parliament and all the partners that were also hands on to listen to children and make it a reality than the policies.

Marta Kuljon

The process is on one hand very easy, on the other hand quite complicated because we need to make sure that our conversations and our interactions with children are safe, meaningful, that we don't only listen to them but we take what they say into account in a responsible way, meaning that we don't over promise what we can deliver afterwards.

So there is a lot of preparation, just to give you a very practical example, you probably all know our building Borscht, we managed to transform it into a child friendly space. It took a little bit of convincing but we had big pillows in the middle of the rooms, in the quotes of the rooms.

We had child friendly food, we pushed some boundaries.

We also had a very strong safeguarding policy. We had documents written in child friendly language so the children knew what they expected. We had child protection officers with us through all the meetings.

We had nurses on site so it was a special event.

Shada Islam

Thank you very much indeed.

Emily O’Reilly

Very well done.

So before you start throwing rocks at me I will announce the overall winner. If I can find it here.

So, anyway there were several sets of eyes looking at this and there was the advisory board led by Chris, there was my chef de cabinet, Gundi my head of communications, Honor and there was myself separately. We all individually separately came to the same conclusion as to who the overall winner should be.

Therefore the overall winner of the European Ombudsman Award for good administration for 2023 is:

Project 27: Helping civil society document core international crimes, Eurojust and the office of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.

So well done. Thank you.

Shada Islam

So we also have a video message from the person who nominated your project for the award.

So here's Alexandra Malangone, senior lawyer at the NGO Human Rights League.

Let's have the video now please.

Alexandra Malangone (video message)

Good morning. My name is Alexandra Malangone.

I am associate fellow at Johns Hopkins Science Europe in Bologna and a member of the board of directors of Human Rights League, which is a Slovak human right defender NGO.

I have nominated the guidelines for the European Ombudsman Award for good administration.

In our view the guidelines prepared by Eurojust genocide network secretariat and ICC representing an extending example of a swift needs based timely and rapid institutional reaction to fill the need for guidance to the local conditions and terms of reference and context in which different NGOs operate.

So I very much hope that the guidelines receive the award as they have been extremely helpful to non-governmental partners both in procedural, substantive and multi-agency cooperation way. Thank you very much.

Shada Islam

Thank you.

So you see we kept the award, the final award secret not only from you but also from those who nominated you. So thank you very much Alexandra.

So how did you feel hearing what Alexandra had to say about how useful this is? How does it make you feel to win the award?

Matevz Pezdirc

Well first of all I would like to thank you and of course the Ombudsman and all the panellists that voted many thanks and would like to actually dedicate the award to all the human rights defenders who are on the ground for collecting information that can be used later on to prosecute those who committed these horrible atrocities. And it's of course the Ukraine was sort of an engine on that but it's applied, the guidelines are applicable to all the situations around the world.

So, I think the real award goes to them who actually put their life in danger to document these crimes and what we've done was trying to support them with these guidelines to set sort of a standard sort of a guiding principles that can help them when they're also on the ground in the discussions what should they do, what they should not do and at least this is sort of a reference tool for them on the ground.

Shada Islam

Right and unfortunately such work will not end because these international crimes continue.

Cristina Ribeiro

Indeed but the beauty is that we will be working together with them you know many times our organizations are not immediately in the ground so the civil society organizations are the one there with the victims who understand the context in which conflicts are happening and they are really the ones best placed to already preserve and think on the long term on how justice can be made. So it's as Matevz said it's really for them.

We also wanted to thank our team because this is what we are just here representing a group of people who work hard in producing these guidelines and so this prize is for all of them and also to mention that we are now in the process of also translating in different languages so we have it in French, in English, in Arabic and in Spanish as well and we have a Ukrainian pretty much finalized and we will keep doing now dissemination sessions with around the world on the guidelines as well.

Shada Islam

Thank you very much and thank you for the team as well. Thank you and congratulations again.

So what a wonderful morning hearing, listening, being part of what you're doing and really as Emily said these are very, very important moments for us and rewards and for us as well and for me to be part of this conversation is really, really useful.

So we're reaching the end of this wonderful inspiring morning. This is all from me.

It's been an honour as I said and a real privilege to be here and to meet all of you, some of you once again and to hear about all that you're doing. It's been fantastic working with you and once again Emily thank you so much for bringing me into this conversation. It's always very, very important for me and to learn about what's happening.

So Emily I would like you to come back on stage and to ask you a couple of questions. Please go to the…

So this year's award Emily was in person last year. The previous ones were hybrid, online etc.

So how and what did you feel this fourth edition? What feelings, sentiments does it inspire in you?

Emily O’Reilly

Well we're always so grateful to people to take the time to enter their projects as we know you're all very busy or you should be at an event and you know to take the time out to do something which is quite complicated is wonderful and it shows the great pride you have in your work and also I think the great pride that you have in the EU itself and you know we in the European Ombudsman we absolutely love this event.

Spreading happiness is always nice. I know some of you may be disappointed at not having got an award but like the margins were so tight and every project that was entered got consideration and everybody should be proud of everything that they did.

I mean, I'm incredibly proud of the European administration. I'm so proud to be a European citizen as my colleagues have heard me say a million times Ireland's entry to the EU enabled my generation of Irish women to have a public life, a life outside the home and I wouldn't be here today were it not for that big step that my country took back in 1973.

So, you know when I obviously as an Ombudsman, I'm critical sometimes, sometimes to compare it to you know parents giving out to their children and when you have somebody who's always a bit of a brat, who's always you know a little bit bold you know there's a certain tolerance there but when you have a child who is talented and who has great potential and all of that and you see them doing something wrong somehow it grieves you a little bit more so that's the feeling I have towards the EU administration.

And so, this is my way of saying that you know, deep down, I really love you all you know and I can't say I didn't mean it when I wrote all those letters to you but you know I mean it in good spirit you know.

Former UK Ombudsman, the wonderful Anne Abraham invented this phrase critical friend and I tend to use that in emergencies now when I'm trying to describe exactly my role.

But I just want to thank all of you for making this such a lovely occasion. I want to thank Shada for her wonderful moderation of the event. I want to thank the people who run this fabulous library and everybody helped us to put the stage together. I mean it's such a lovely venue and I think it adds a particular luster to the event to have it in this gorgeous place.

I'd like to thank President Metsola for saying her few words.

I want to thank my fantastic colleagues we are a tiny office 70 people sit between Brussels and Strasbourg and to do something like this it involves a lot of effort but they do it with such grace and enthusiasm and hard work and so, Honor this year was leading the charge so thank you Honor and all of the colleagues.

So well done everybody.

If I have left anybody out, and I'm sure I have, you can send a complaint care of European Ombudsman but anyway thank you and I would now like to invite you all to a very early lunch outside.

Thank you enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you.