It is a great pleasure to speak to the committee about my annual report, work that we have done on the transparency of environmental decision making and more general issues around my work.
The complaints we deal with and investigations we open span a very wide range of subjects from freedom of information requests; concerns around inappropriate or opaque lobbying; the protection of fundamental rights by EU agencies involved in asylum and migration issues; revolving doors; staff complaints; and more general concerns around EU administration. Through my work, I try to ensure the highest standards in ethics and accountability in the EU administration. The EU’s capacity to exert positive global influence as the world continues to face so many crises, from financial to those linked to the climate crisis, is maximised only when it is seen to act in an ethical and accountable way.
Earlier this week I listened to a discussion about the continuing fallout from the US-led invasion of Iraq 20 years ago and was struck by the words of one contributor who noted that moral authority is necessary for political legitimacy. Recent months have been dominated by the fallout from what is known as "Qatargate", that is, serious allegations of foreign governments buying and attempting to buy influence in the European Parliament. The scandal exposed a porous ethical framework, which bad actors could and can exploit. The vast majority of MEPs are conscientious and act in the public interest, but lax ethics rules empower those who choose to act corruptly.
The Parliament has begun the process of reforming its internal ethics rules and earlier this week my office wrote to European Parliament President, Roberta Metsola, outlining our own thoughts as to what needs to be considered to produce rules that will withstand both internal and external scrutiny.
In 2021, we opened 338 inquiries, that is, investigations of complaints, but we also have own-initiative investigations in matters of public interest and, once again, transparency-related issues accounted for the largest proportion of them including the relatively new question of work-related text messages. While freedom of information, FOI, requests concerning instant messages are already part of the Irish landscape, the same cannot be said of the EU administration. A journalist, for example, turned to my office after the Commission refused to give access to text messages sent between its President and the CEO of the Pfizer pharmaceutical company concerning the purchase of Covid-19 vaccines. The EU’s access to documents or FOI law clearly states that it is the content and not the medium that counts when it comes to considering what constitutes an EU document or record. However, my inquiry showed that the Commission does not consider text messages to be documents and, therefore, does not record them. I found maladministration in that case on the grounds that what the Commission described as shortlived messages do indeed constitute documents under the relevant legislation if they contain information around EU decision making.
The Commission has since engaged positively with us in relation to dealing with the wider matter of the registration of such messages. On the more specific matter, The New York Times recently announced that it has taken a case to the European Court of Justice, ECJ, in relation to the refusal of the Commission to release the Von der Leyen-Pfizer messages. I have since drawn up a list of practical recommendations for all institutions on how to record work-related instant and text messages. The aim is to ensure a comprehensive historical record of EU decision making.
In addition to complaint-based inquiries, I use my strategic powers to bring attention to systemic issues in the EU administration from accountability in decision making, to making sure lobbying is transparent and ensuring ethics rules are upheld. Last year, I focused on revolving doors, an issue that is becoming increasingly problematic in Brussels. I launched a broad inquiry into how the Commission handles moves by staff to the private sector. I found that it is not using the full potential of the rules, which include temporarily forbidding people from taking new posts, to protect the integrity of the administration. It is important to consider what it means when people with regulatory expertise move to the private sector, bringing their knowledge and contacts with them. In my view, the potentially corrosive effect of revolving doors is generally underestimated across EU institutions with a failure to see it, in some cases, for what it really is, that is, the buying and selling of influence.
Recent inquiries of mine found important weaknesses in how the European Banking Authority, the European Investment Bank and the European Defence Agency manage the issues. In all three cases, senior personnel had been allowed to move to private sector interests that were heavily vested in regulatory and other decision-making areas of the institutions the personnel had left. This is a matter I will continue to monitor closely.
My office works to improve the accountability and transparency of the EU administration to the benefit of everyone, even if they never come into direct contact with the EU institutions. This is characterised as sustaining impact in our office’s strategic roadmap for the coming years. We try to stay relevant and achieve long-lasting impact by continually scanning the horizon to see where our work could be of use. That was the context in which, as I mentioned earlier, I wrote to the European Parliament with suggestions about how its proposed internal ethics reforms could be further strengthened. Earlier this month, I also wrote to the European Commission to ask for more details on how it deals with requests for business trips by its senior staff members that are paid for by third parties. This arose from reports that a senior member of a directorate-general, DG, or department, dealing with aviation issues, had accepted free flights to and hospitality in Qatar while his DG was negotiating Qatari rights to EU airspace.
Recent inquiries and initiatives have also looked at the transparency of EU decision making on Russian sanctions, how human rights standards are incorporated into the trade deals the EU signs and the impact of artificial intelligence on the EU administration. Lately, I have also started looking at the transparency of decision making around the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the multi-billion euro fund, which aims to help the EU economy recover from the effects of Covid-19 in an environmentally sustainable manner. People have a right to know what projects have been chosen for funding and whether the agreed milestones have been achieved. Ireland, for example, is to receive around €989 million in grants. Around 42% of the plan should support climate investments. Should people be able to easily find out how progress is being made on these spending goals? The answer is clearly "Yes", but so far this has not been fully reflected in the Commission’s approach to the matter. Several national recovery plans have all been subject to FOI requests that have since landed on my desk because the complainants are dissatisfied with the amount of information they have received.
The transparency of environmental decisions makes up an increasing number of the complaints I receive each year. Despite the importance of the issue, and the fact that the EU has signed up to rules that require a high level of public access to environmental information, people often feel they do not know how or why decisions have been taken, whether they concern pesticides, are projects funded by the European Investment Bank or involve the proper implementation of sustainability checks. This has led me to prioritise scrutiny in this area. Last autumn, I launched a public consultation to find out whether citizens have access to up-to-date information on environmental decision making. Questions included how easy it is for the public to obtain documents or information related to the environment, and how citizens could be more involved in the preparation and implementation of green policies. The answers to the consultation - which we are currently analysing - will help me advise the EU administration and, perhaps, prompt new inquiries. On such vital issues, it is important that people can exercise their right to democratic scrutiny and I shall continue to work towards making this a reality.
I will finish by highlighting a very positive step relating to my office. Thanks in large part to the European Parliament Committee on Petitions, the European Ombudsman’s statute was strengthened in 2021. This sent a positive message about the role of the European Ombudsman in overseeing the EU administration but also more generally about the importance of strong, independent oversight bodies at all levels of public administration. I thank committee members for their attention and I am happy to answer any questions they may have.
