Debate: Activities of the European Ombudsman – annual report
Date: TUESDAY, 9 MARCH 2021
Speaker: Virginijus Sinkevičius
Language: EN

Let me start by recalling the 25th anniversary of the European Ombudsman that we celebrated in October 2020 and the essential role this office plays in maintaining public trust in the European Union, ensuring that the Union’s administration works in an open and transparent way, and safeguarding the integral idea of European citizenship. I would like to take this opportunity to once again personally express my praise and gratitude to the current Ombudsman, Ms O’Reilly, who has shown great dedication and commitment to her work.  I will turn now to the main subject of today’s discussion, the European Parliament’s resolution and the report of the Committee on Petitions (PETI) on the annual report on the activities of the European Ombudsman in 2019. These are annual cornerstones of good administration in the EU institutions, bodies, agencies and offices of the European Union. I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Ms Sylvie Guillaume, the coordinators of the PETI Committee and all its Members who have been involved in this work. As every year, this report provides the views of the European Parliament on the issues that it considers noteworthy in the area of good administration procedures.  The field of action of the Ombudsman is broad: correspondance between the institutions and citizens, contractual issues between citizens or companies and the European administration, late contractual payments from institutions or agencies, requirement issues, and other staff matters, such as the implementation of anti-discrimination measures applying to requirement procedures. All of them remain in the remit of the Ombudsman.  As always, transparency is high on the agenda, notably in the area of access to documents, international negotiations, advisory bodies, or of the Eurogroup bodies, the transparency register, but also with other issues, such as job changes between the public and private sectors and the declaration of conflicts of interest. The Commission has multiple interactions with citizens, businesses, associations and NGOs, and is naturally the main addressee of the Ombudsman’s inquiries. The Commission attaches great importance to its relations with the Ombudsman and her services and is strongly committed to finding a solution to the problems raised by citizens. We will continue to work in this constructive spirit and hope all other institutions, bodies, offices and agencies do the same.  While it is not always possible to reach agreement on every case, I am pleased to know that the acceptance rate of the Ombudsman’s proposals by the Commission has increased to 75%. In the field of suggestions for improvement, the rate is even higher, and the Commission responded positively in 48 out of 53 cases in 2019. This is a clear demonstration of the constructive character of the relations between the Ombudsman and the Commission and the EU administration in general. Further good news for European citizens is that the Ombudsman very rarely finds that maladministration has taken place.  I conclude by noting the positive progress of the discussions on Parliament’s proposal to review the statute of the Ombudsman between the Council, Parliament and the Commission. All the teams involved, including the team of rapporteur Paulo Rangel, have been collaborating in a very constructive and open manner. I look forward to hearing the views of the honourable Members, and I thank you for your attention.