Debate: Activities of the European Ombudsman - annual report
Date: MONDAY, 13 MARCH 2023
Speaker: EMILY O'REILLY
Language: EN

I just want to reflect on one thing that a number of people alluded to, and that was in relation to somebody talked about the fact that sometimes recommendations are not accepted, somebody else talked about just the nature of the Ombudsman and so on. And one question I’m often asked is, do I want more powers? Do I want binding powers? And I’ve always said no. While it would be tempting to think that I could just bang my fist on the table and have everybody do everything, that’s not what the point of an ombudsman is.  The ombudsman works in the area of soft law and the extent to which an ombudsman’s rulings and recommendations are respected, acknowledged and implemented is actually a measure of the quality of an administration. Because I believe that if an ombudsman is doing his or her work independently, honestly, effectively and so on, the vast majority if not all recommendations should be accepted.  We do have a high rate in the European Parliament or, sorry, in the European administration, which is generally over 80 %. But to my view, it should be closer to 100 %. Sometimes the reason that I am given for the non-implementation of a recommendation is not because I’ve made a mistake, my colleagues have made a mistake or we’ve got the wrong end of the stick, but simply because an institution simply doesn’t want to do something. And sometimes there is an element of impunity there – they feel that they can get away with it.  But I continue to trust in the administration, I continue to trust in the power of soft law, because the day that an ombudsman is granted hard powers is the day that the administration will have failed.  Transparency, as ever, has been a major piece and sometimes transparency is seen as an abstract thing but it isn’t. It is very, very concrete thing. It is the way that administrations are made accountable to the citizens and administration is there to protect the citizens. And the citizens have a right to take part in the democratic life of the Union, as I alluded to earlier, and they can only do that if they know what’s going on in the first place.  Another MEP talked about the fact that I will have succeeded if the text messages, which have been talked about a lot, are released, but I don’t think I will have succeeded, I think the Commission will have succeeded if there is greater transparency in relation to that.  We’ve talked about the moral force that the EU should be, and I firmly believe in that. And if I do my piece ethically, well, independently, then it’s on the administration to do its piece. I can’t force things through. But it is the administration itself that has to look into its own soul – if you forgive the use of that phrase – and decide what it should do. Somebody else talked about why an ombudsman exists, because we have the courts and so on. I mean, I always feel very strongly that an ombudsman exists there to really give justice in the very wider sense, to be there to listen to people when they have been through, you know, big bureaucratic headaches and frustration and stress and trying to get there their issue dealt with. And I constantly say to my colleagues that we need always to listen. We have to be that listening ear because stress is relieved when people feel that they have been heard. And we all know this with our own interactions with telephone services or whatever it is. But I believe an ombudsman is there at the sometimes at the end of the line to be that that human face and to hear and to listen and to try and give justice.  But I can only do so much. The administration has to absolutely step up to the plate as well and I believe that, you know, Qatargate, as I said to my colleagues, was an opportunity to re-examine these issues that I’ve been talking about, my predecessors have been talking about, for many years. And I think what happened there and other things that have happened have shown just how important those things are. They matter. They have a real value in the real world. And they’re not just abstract concepts to be to be spoken about in an academic way.  So again, I thank Madam Pelletier, I thank the PETI Committee and I thank the Parliament for the support because an ombudsman really survives only with the support of the parliament. And I thank you for that.