The European Commission says a contractor it hired to monitor rights in Libya does not report on any evidence that its policies are harmful.

The statement on Friday (17 January) follows a three-year saga of document access requests by EUobserver after a senior European Commission official suggested otherwise.

In April 2022, Francisco Gaztelu Mezquiri, who headed a migration unit at the European Commission, told MEPs it had hired a contractor to monitor its co-financed operations in Libya.

The aim, he said, was to ensure that such operations do not cause any damage “with particular attention to ensuring the respect of the do-no-harm policy.”

“So far, the contractor didn’t report any violations of the do-no-harm principle directly related to all costs by our trust fund programmes,” he said at the time.

On Friday, the European Commission, in a short letter, appears to have changed its tune.

It now says the related reports, provided by the contractor, track a wide range of reported developments and point out potential risks observed in the field.