33 Facts About European Ombudsman

European Ombudsman is an inter-institutional body of the European Union that holds the institutions, bodies and agencies of the EU to account, and promotes good administration.

The European Ombudsman helps people, businesses and organisations facing problems with the EU administration by investigating complaints, as well as by proactively looking into broader systemic issues.

European Ombudsman was established by the Maastricht Treaty and the first, Jacob Soderman of Finland, was elected by Parliament in 1995.

The European Ombudsman is elected for the term of 5 years and the term is renewable.

European Ombudsman has no binding powers to compel compliance with their rulings, but the overall level of compliance is high.

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The European Ombudsman primarily relies on the power of persuasion and publicity.

One example of a case dealt with by the European Ombudsman involved a late payment from the commission to a German science journalist.

In 2011 the UK was responsible for 141 complaints to the European Ombudsman, still representing a relatively low ratio of complaints to population.

Main mission guiding the European Ombudsman's work is the “right to good administration” that is recognized as a human right in the EU.

The European Ombudsman helps citizens, companies and associations that face problems with EU administration.

The main areas of inquiries of European Ombudsman relate to the transparency of EU institutions administration; transparency and accountability in EU decision-making; lobbying transparency; ethical issues; fundamental rights; EU competitions policy; and citizen participation in EU decision-making.

The European Ombudsman was involved in the Transparency Register, which has enabled citizens to know who is trying to influence EU decision-makers.

For instance, in 2014, the European Ombudsman published, after a formal inquiry, a final decision stating that the “Commission's refusal to publish online details of all meetings which its services and its staff have with the tobacco industry” constituted maladministration.

The European Ombudsman has defended that EU administration must comply with “gold standards when it comes to ethical behaviour”.

Key part of European Ombudsman work is to ensure that EU institutions respect fundamental rights.

For example, in 2015 the European Ombudsman conducted an investigation, in collaboration with 19 members of the European Network of Ombudsmen, into the compliance of fundamental rights by Frontex when forcing migrants to return to their home countries.

In 2014, the European Ombudsman invited ECI organizers to give feedback on the ECI.

However, the European Ombudsman has no power to make legally binding decisions, so it can only act as a moderator in the dispute.

Whenever it finds a situation of maladministration, the European Ombudsman can make proposals through problem-solving proposals, recommendations and suggestions.

The main way in which the European Ombudsman tries to resolve the case is by proposing a solution, that is, a solution that both the complainant and the institution concerned would be willing to accept.

Such recommendations are published in the European Ombudsman's website, creating therefore some publicity and raising public attention to the maladministration identified.

In those cases, European Ombudsman helps complainants by explaining the Ombudsman's mandate, advising other bodies where to direct their complaint.

Institution receiving the greatest number of inquiries conducted by the European Ombudsman has been throughout the years the European Commission.

High number of maladministration complaints made to European Ombudsman in parallel with the literature support, shows that “the ombudsman is an important platform protecting the rights of citizens and promoting democratic values at the EU level”.

European Ombudsman has, since its appearance in 1995, profiled itself as an institution with the “good governance” mission, promoting this cause and its own place within the EU institutional system.

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One of the goals of the European Ombudsman is to achieve improvements in the EU administration and, according to its way of working, statistics can to partially measure their results, in terms of how the institutions responded to the Ombudsman's proposals.

Data from the 2020 Annual Report shows how responsive the European Ombudsman was in 2020 towards the complaints received by individuals, companies, and associations, including the complaints that were outside its mandate scope .

Out of 119 proposals from the European Ombudsman related to corrections the EU institutions should do to improve their administrative practices, 95 were positively received and had an influence on the correction of the maladministration situations detected.

European Ombudsman opened an inquiry after the ex-executive director of the European Banking Authority moved to the position of CEO of the Association for Financial Markets in Europe.

The European Ombudsman concluded that the EBA should have forbidden such move of job, given the high risks of conflict of interests.

The European Ombudsman opened an inquiry following a complaint and verified that some internal notes of meetings should have been disclosed.

The Commission improved the appointment procedure as it had been suggested by the European Ombudsman, indicating a vacancy notice and a well-defined timeline in the procedure.

The mission and performance of the European Ombudsman is positively seen by the EU institutions, shown by the rates of positive cooperation and compliance with the European Ombudsman's recommendations.