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29th Mar 2024

MEPs send mixed message on transparency

  • MEPs are willing to make some concessions to transparency but not all (Photo: CE)

The European ombudsman is one step closer to gaining full access to information and documents held by EU institutions after MEPs adopted on Tuesday (22 April) a report boosting his powers.

"The community institutions and bodies shall be obliged to supply the ombudsman with any information he has requested of them and give him access to the files concerned," reads the European Parliament's report, supported by an overwhelming majority of the lawmakers.

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It continues by describing the move as crucial to "eliminate any possible uncertainty concerning the capacity of the ombudsman to conduct thorough and impartial inquiries in alleged cases of maladministration".

Some 620 MEPs voted in favour of the suggestions, while 18 were against and 18 abstained.

"The changes will help me to improve the service that I can provide for citizens, thus strengthening their trust in the European Union and its institutions," the European Ombudsman, Nikiforos Diamandouros, said in response to Tuesday's vote.

Finnish Liberal Anneli Jaatteenmaki, in charge of the dossier, also expressed satisfaction over the outcome, saying it was a question of transparency as well as of EU ombudsman being able to do his job.

But at the same time, Ms Jaatteenmaki pointed to a strong reluctance within EU bodies to extend openness and transparency. "Even small steps are difficult," she told EUobserver.

The parliament's two major groups, the conservatives (EPP-ED) and the Socialists (PSE), showed little enthusiasm for a review of the ombudsman's duties in order to allow him access to all documents, including those classified.

According to the Finnish MEP, they were afraid that information obtained by the ombudsman will go from his hands to the media and pushed through legal guarantees so that the ombudsman's office is bound by a duty of non disclosure of the information acquired in the course of an inquiry.

"I can see place for improvement when it comes to [EU institutions'] transparency," Ms Jaatteenmaki said. But she defended MEPs' position by drawing a parallel with a court's work, saying judges also receive information, but do not make it necessarily public.

The report on the ombudsman statute is now going to be discussed by EU member states. The final approval is expected towards the end of June.

Transparency problems continue

Lack of transparency, including refusal of information, has for a long time topped the list of EU institutions' sins against citizens, with some 28 percent of complaints falling into this category.

In a separate budget vote on Tuesday, MEPs did little to improve the perception of transparency in the EU assembly, by rejecting proposals for auditors' reports to be made public as a matter of principle.

This issue of auditors' reports came to the spotlight in February this year, when UK Liberal Chris Davies exposed the existence of a secret report examining how European deputies misuse their staff allowances.

The report, covering a sample group of 167 payments, is only available to members of the parliament's budgetary control committee and only then if they agree to treat it confidentially, reading it under supervision and being forbidden from taking notes.

In the roll-call vote 209 MEPs voted in favour of making the report public, while 422 were against and 53 abstained.

In addition, MEPs also rejected calls to reveal the names of the 407 members of the voluntary pension fund.

The Parliament pays €27,720 each year into the pension fund of the members concerned, while they are supposed to make a private contribution of a further €13,860 each year.

However, it is believed that a number of MEPs pay their personal contributions from money allocated for their parliamentary duties or for running their office.

Mr Davies described the two votes as "shameful", bringing "discredit and dishonour upon the entire parliament". "Far from cleaning up their act, a majority of MEPs seem intent on allowing greed and self-interest to triumph over the proper financial management of public money," he said.

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