The European Ombudsman's Work
on Grants and Procurement
Background
What are EU grants?
The EU provides funding in the form of grants to further common EU interests or help implement a particular programme or policy. The beneficiaries of grants include non-profit organisations, research institutions, and businesses.
What is EU Procurement?
Procurement is the process through which the EU’s institutions, bodies, offices, and agencies acquire the goods, services, or works they need to function and implement EU policies. It involves a competitive tendering process in which businesses and organisations compete for EU contracts.
The role of the European Ombudsman
The Ombudsman works to ensure good administration in the EU administration’s management of grants and procurement. This includes ensuring the EU institutions follow the rules when it comes to managing contracts and tenders and that they deal with applicants and recipients of EU funds in a fair manner.
If an individual or organisation has a problem with how an EU body handled a grant or a call for tender, they can turn to the Ombudsman.
The Ombudsman received a complaint concerning the European Commission's decision to recover costs from a Croatian NGO following an audit of an EU-funded project on the rehabilitation of victims of torture.
While the NGO was coordinating the project, most of the costs considered ineligible were actually attributed to one of the project partners, which refused to pay its share of the debt to the NGO.
As a result of an Ombudsman inquiry, the European Commission cancelled the debit notice to the NGO and said it would issue a new recovery order directly to the project partner.
Statistics
The European Ombudsman received
189 complaints
about grants and procurement from 2022 to 2024
Grants
What were the complaints about?
Procurement
What were the complaints about?
Grants
What were the inquiry results?
Procurement
What were the inquiry results?
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