Activities of Margrete AUKEN related to 2023/2120(INI)
Plenary speeches (1)
Activities of the European Ombudsman – annual report 2022 (debate)
Shadow reports (1)
REPORT on the annual report on the activities of the European Ombudsman in 2022
Amendments (23)
Amendment 1 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital C a (new)
Recital C a (new)
C a. whereas Article 41 of the Charter, on the right to good administration, states, inter alia, that ‘every person has the right to have his or her affairs handled impartially, fairly and within a reasonable time by the institutions, bodies, offices and agencies of the Union’;
Amendment 2 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D a (new)
Recital D a (new)
D a. whereas Article 298(1) TFEU establishes that ‘in carrying out their missions, the institutions, bodies, offices and agencies of the Union shall have the support of an open, efficient and independent European administration’;
Amendment 10 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital K a (new)
Recital K a (new)
K a. whereas the Ombudsman decided to launch a public consultation on transparency and participation in EU decision making related to the environment, in light of the climate emergency, environmental and ecosystem degradation, with the view to assessing the EU's approach, as a party to the Aarhus Convention, in ensuring a high level of public access to environmental information and public participation in decision making relating to the environment;
Amendment 13 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital K b (new)
Recital K b (new)
K b. whereas the Ombudsman underlined that the EU rules on public procurement are not robust and clear enough to prevent conflicts of interest and criticised the Commission for its insufficient critical scrutiny before awarding a contract to carry out a study on integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) objectives into EU banking rules, to BlackRock Investment Management, a company managing investments in the fossil fuel and banking sectors, which are areas that fall within the scope of the new rules on ESG;
Amendment 16 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital K c (new)
Recital K c (new)
K c. whereas the Ombudsman opened an inquiry to look into whether there are systemic delays in how the European Commission handles requests for public access to documents; whereas the Ombudsman's inquiry found maladministration in the Commission's systemic and significant delays, notably in dealing with requests to review initial decisions (‘confirmatory applications’); whereas the Ombudsman submitted to the European Parliament a Special Report on this matter, seeking Parliament’s support in prevailing upon the Commission to act on her recommendation;
Amendment 19 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Congratulates Emily O’Reilly on her good work and her continuous efforts to improve administrative practices and to promote accountability and full transparency of the EU institutions, bodies, offices and agencies, as well as to ensure accessibility of EU documents for EU citizens;
Amendment 22 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Expresses its appreciation of the continued constructive cooperation of the European Ombudsman with the European Parliament, and notably with the Committee on Petitions, as well as with other EU institutions;
Amendment 23 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3 a (new)
Paragraph 3 a (new)
3 a. Finds unacceptable that the Council’s decision making process is still affected by severe lack of transparency; calls on the Council to fully comply with the transparency standards of a parliamentary and participatory democracy as required under the Treaties and requested by the Ombudsman; reminds that the Court of Justice stipulated that the principles of publicity and transparency are inherent to the EU legislative process and that the lack of transparency and information weakens citizens’ trust in the legitimacy of the EU legislative process as a whole;
Amendment 25 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3 b (new)
Paragraph 3 b (new)
3 b. Calls on the Council to grant citizens timely access to its legislative documents during ongoing legislative procedures in order to fully uphold citizens’ treaty-based right to participate in the democratic life of the Union, which in turn would enhance citizens' trust in the overall EU decision-making process;
Amendment 26 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Acknowledges the opening of the own-initiative inquiry to assess how the Commission ensures that its interactions with tobacco industry representatives are transparent; underlines that the failure of the Commission as a whole to proactively publish details of its meetings with tobacco lobbyists amounted to maladministration, as indicated by the Ombudsman in her preliminary findings; recalls that the EU signed up to the World Health Organisation’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) and is obliged to comply with its provisions establishing that interactions with the tobacco industry should take place only when strictly necessary from a regulatory point of view as well as to make those interactions transparent in order to prevent the tobacco industry from having a negative impact on public health policies;
Amendment 28 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 a (new)
Paragraph 4 a (new)
4 a. Considers paramount that the Ombudsman launch an investigation to assess the level of independence from fossil fuel industry of the EU Energy Platform Industry Advisory Group set up by the Commission, as well as over any undue influence of the fossil fuel industry aimed at weakening the EU Institutions’ response to climate change, as evidence coming from many environmental NGOs proved that fossil fuels companies massively lobbied the Commission over the 2022 in order to get support for further gas and oil projects, blocking social measures, including windfall taxes, at EU level, which would have helped a lot economically millions of people during the ongoing energy crisis;
Amendment 29 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Endorses the result of the Ombudsman’s examination of how the Commission ensures that external experts involved in evaluating project proposals under the European Defence Fund do not have conflicts of interest; underlines the paramount importance of carrying out a thorough assessment of conflicts of interest ofbefore appointeding experts, making sure that transparency and ethics obligations are robustly implemented;
Amendment 30 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Welcomes the Commission’s proposal, in response to the Ombudsman’s findings following her inquiry into the BlackRock case, to amend the Financial Regulation to include the possibility to reject tenderers if they have a conflict of interest; takes note of the Ombudsman’s suggestion to the Commission to update its guidelines for public procurement procedures for policy-related contracts, with a view to preventing any conflicts of interesasks the Commission to comply fully with the Ombudsman’s suggestions by adopting strengthened and clearer rules, including in the framework of its internal guidelines, aimed at preventing any conflicts of interest in all procedures related to public procurement;
Amendment 32 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Highlights the fact that, following an inquiry by the Ombudsman into the phenomenon of ‘revolving doors’, the Commission is improving its handling of the issue and requests information from former staff on how they are complying with relevant restrictions; welcomnotes the faster publishing by the Commission of an annual overview of senior staff members requesting permission to move to new employment, and its assessment of these requests; underlines that the Commission should not grant any authorisation where the concerned employment cannot be made subject to restrictions that adequately mitigate the risks of conflicts of interest and be credibly monitored and enforced, including the obligation for the new employer to make public the restrictions; believes that the Commission should publish in a timely way information on all post-service activities of senior former staff members that it assesses, thus improving public scrutiny of these decisions, which is essential for monitoring purposes; welcomes the fact that staff on unpaid leave are forbidden from taking employment in areas where there is a risk of conflict of interest;
Amendment 37 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
9. Underlines that the participation of citizens in EU decision-making is important for its legitimacy; appreciates the Ombudsman’s commitment to foster accountability in EU decision-making, especially in the area of environmental decisions; welcomes and supports the Ombudsman’s requests to the European Investment Bank’s (EIB) to take several transparency steps to enable the public to more easily see the potential environmental impact of the projects it finances as well as the Ombudsman's intention to step up her scrutiny of the European Investment Bank’s (EIB)'s activities, in light of the EIB's insufficient follow-up to date, in particular regarding the timely publishing of information about projects related to the environment and EIB finances in order to give sufficient time to the public to raise concerns;
Amendment 38 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9 a (new)
Paragraph 9 a (new)
9 a. Commends the Ombudsman’s work in prioritising the assessment of the transparency of EU environmental decision making, following, inter alia, her finding of maladministration in the Commission’s failure to consider properly the environmental impact of the EU- Mercosur trade agreement before concluding negotiation, the Commission's severe shortcomings in handling requests on public access to environmental information as well as the lack of clear rules to ensure that experts the Commission consults, in the context of environmental policymaking, are not subject to conflicts of interest;
Amendment 39 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. WUnderlines that the Ombudsman found regrettable that proactive transparency mainly happened only after the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) national plans had already been approved, thus preventing the public from adequately following the negotiations; is concerned about the lengthy delays the Commission is incurring in dealing with requests for public access to RRF related documents, in some cases taking one year or more; urges the Commission to encourage Member States to use a public portal to include all recipients of funding under the RRF, to continue publishing its preliminary assessments of Member States’ payment requests and to inform with concrete details the public about its supervisory and audit work in order to ensure meaningful accountability for all funds spent; welcomes the publication by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, in collaboration with the European Ombudsman’s Office, of the policy paper entitled ‘Towards good practice principles for government transparency in the use of recovery funds’, which provides guidance to governments on ensuring transparency and accountability in the use of COVID-19 recovery funds;
Amendment 41 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11
Paragraph 11
11. SHighlights that the Ombudsman in her Strategic Initiative concerning how the European Commission ensured transparency and balanced interest representation under the Common Agricultural Policy found that key elements of the CAP national strategic plans, including specific measures by budget item and milestones to be fulfilled, were missing, thus making difficult for citizens and interested parties to understand the conditions under which Member States use the assistance provided by the new CAP; supports the Ombudsman’s call on the Commission to proactively disclose more information concerning the approval of Member States’ strategic plans under the common agricultural policy; asks the Commissioner for Agriculture and his cabinet as well as the Commission’s Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development to comply with the Ombudsman’s recommendations and seek a betterfair and balanced representation of the interests of both farmers and civil society in its meetings and exchanges with interest representatives, given that, as pointed out by the Ombudsman in her letter of February 2022, the Commissioner for Agriculture and his cabinet held a larger number of meetings with industry representatives when compared with environmental organisations and other organisations like research institutions; requests the Commission to assume an active role in securing compliance with the transparency obligations imposed on Member States, including the obligation to disclose the broader entities that beneficiaries of funds belong to and the obligation to publish the total amount of payments received by a beneficiary, with a view to guaranteeing that the public has all necessary information about beneficiaries of CAP funding;
Amendment 42 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11 a (new)
Paragraph 11 a (new)
11 a. Regrets that the Commission’s approach in the setting up of Civil Dialogue Groups (CDGs) in matters covered by the CAP did not comply with the Ombudsman’s recommendations and had several gaps, failing to transparently and clearly implement a balanced representation between economic and non-economic interests in CDGs' composition;
Amendment 43 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11 b (new)
Paragraph 11 b (new)
11 b. Fully supports the Ombudsman's recommendations addressed to the Commission in the framework of her strategic inquiry concerning the time the Commission takes to deal with requests for public access to documents; calls on the Commission to timely correct its current approach in order to respect the timelines set out by the legislator; believes that the Commission must solve, as a matter of priority, all shortcomings identified in its way to handle requests on access to documents, including its insufficient proactive transparency, its insufficient human resources as well as its limited interaction with requesters;
Amendment 47 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
13. Notes the Ombudsman’s work in issuing practicalStresses that the Commission's refusal to grant public access to text messages exchanged between the Commission President and the CEO of a pharmaceutical company on the purchase of COVID 19 vaccines constituted maladministration; underlines that according to Regulation (EC) 1049/2001, a document is “any content whatever its medium (written on paper or stored in electronic form or as a sound, visual or audiovisual recording) concerning a matter relating to the policies, activities and decisions falling within the institution's sphere of responsibility” and that this provision equally applies to all documents held by an EU institution, that is, “documents drawn up or received by it and in its possession, in all areas of activity of the European Union”; welcomes the Ombudsman’s recommendations for the EU administration on the recording of work- related text and instant messages and stresses the importance for the EU institutions of foullowingy complying with these recommendations in order to bring the practices of the EU administration into line with modern communication methods; welcomestakes note of the Commission’s response that it will issue further guidance on modern communication tools such as text messages;
Amendment 52 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15
Paragraph 15
15. Points out that the Ombudsman conducted a strategic inquiry into how Frontex complies with its fundamental rights and transparency obligations under its expanded mandate under Regulation 2019/18962 ; and set out a series of suggestions with a view to improving Frontex's accountability, reminding that in its activities Frontex must apply high transparency standards, allowing for public scrutiny and ensure full respect for fundamental rights; _________________ 2 Regulation (EU) 2019/1896 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 November 2019 on the European Border and Coast Guard and repealing Regulations (EU) No 1052/2013 and (EU) 2016/1624. OJ L 295, 14.11.2019, p. 1.
Amendment 55 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15 a (new)
Paragraph 15 a (new)
15 a. Appreciates the Ombudsman's valuable contribution for higher ethics standards to safeguard EU democracy, following the so-called "Qatargate" scandal; welcomes the new series of measures designed at improving the integrity standards inside the European Parliament; considers the adoption of these rules as an important first step to improve the overall EU regulatory framework aiming at the highest ethics and anti-corruption rules in order to make the EU Institutions the global gold standard for integrity and accountability;