2023/2120(INI) | [ParlTrack]

Motion for a resolution
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 10 #

Motion for a resolution
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 11 #

Kosma ZŁOTOWSKI, Ryszard CZARNECKI, Angel DZHAMBAZKI, Andrey SLABAKOV

Motion for a resolution
Recital K a (new)

K a. whereas in 2022, the Ombudsman has urged the Commission to treat access to document requests concerning EU recovery funds with greater consistency and to better explain its reasoning if it decides not release the asked-for information; 1a _________________ 1a https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/ne ws-document/en/163567

Amendment 12 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital K a (new)

Ka. whereas the Ombudsman found maladministration in how the Commission handled the issue of text messages between the Commission President and the CEO of a pharmaceutical company;

Amendment 13 #

Motion for a resolution
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 14 #

Kosma ZŁOTOWSKI, Ryszard CZARNECKI, Angel DZHAMBAZKI, Andrey SLABAKOV

Motion for a resolution
Recital K b (new)

K b. whereas in 2022, the Ombudsman opened an inquiry in the European Commission’s refusal to give public access to documents related to its proposal for a Regulation on the European Health Data Space; 9k _________________ 9k https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/cas e/en/62762

Amendment 15 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital K b (new)

Kb. whereas in 2022 the Ombudsman processed almost 1500 complaints that did not fall within her mandate such as those related to the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion;

Amendment 16 #

Motion for a resolution
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 17 #

Kosma ZŁOTOWSKI, Ryszard CZARNECKI, Angel DZHAMBAZKI, Andrey SLABAKOV

Motion for a resolution
Recital K c (new)

K c. whereas in 2022, the Ombudsman opened an inquiry on how the European Commission dealt with a request for public access to declarations of interests of the members of its Regulatory Scrutiny Board;10n _________________ 10n https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/op ening-summary/en/163838

Amendment 18 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital K c (new)

Kc. whereas the Ombudsman has strongly criticised the EU’s response to the Qatargate corruption scandal in the European Parliament;

Amendment 19 #

Motion for a resolution
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 2 #

Motion for a resolution
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 20 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2 a (new)

2 a. Congratulates the Ombudsman on the opening of an inquiry into time taken by Commission to deal with access to documents requests; 3c _________________ 3c https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/ne ws-document/en/154486

Amendment 21 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3

3. Expresses its appreciation of the continued constructive cooperation of the European Ombudsman with the European Parliament, as well as with other EU institutions; reiterates its commitment to support the Ombudsman in the performance of her duties;

Amendment 22 #

Motion for a resolution
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)

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 24 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3 a (new)

3 a. Congratulates the Ombudsman’s Office for the significant efficiency rate improvements in the length of inquiry of cases closed, which improved from 13 months on average in 2013 to less than 6 months on average in 2022; underlines that the results are achieved covering several areas of EU administration with limited resources;

Amendment 25 #

Motion for a resolution
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

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 27 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4

4. ~~Acknowledg~~Welcomes the opening of the own- initiative inquiry to assess how the Commission ensures that its interactions with tobacco industry representatives are transparent;

Amendment 28 #

Motion for a resolution
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 #

Kosma ZŁOTOWSKI, Ryszard CZARNECKI, Angel DZHAMBAZKI, Andrey SLABAKOV

Motion for a resolution
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 3 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital F

F. whereas in 2022, the ~~greater part~~vast majority of the inquiries concerned the Commission (197 inquiries or 57.1 %), while the next largest numbers concerned the European Personnel Selection Office (22 inquiries or 6.3 %), Parliament (19 inquiries or 5.5 %), and the European External Action Service (16 inquiries or 4.6 %); whereas the remaining inquiries were distributed as follows: the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) (14 inquiries or 4.3 %), the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (7 inquiries or 2 %), other EU institutions or bodies (46 inquiries or 13.5 %), and other EU agencies (23 inquiries or 6.7 %);

Amendment 30 #

Motion for a resolution
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 interes~~asks 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 31 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6

Amendment 32 #

Motion for a resolution
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; ~~welcom~~notes 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 33 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7

Amendment 34 #

Kosma ZŁOTOWSKI, Ryszard CZARNECKI, Angel DZHAMBAZKI, Andrey SLABAKOV

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7 a (new)

7 a. Highlights the fact that the Ombudsman’s inquiry into the refusal of the Commission to grant access to text messages between the Commission President and Pfizer CEO related to the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines showed that the "Commission had asked its President’s private office (cabinet) to search only for documents that fulfil the Commission’s recording criteria. As the Commission does not to register text messages, the search did not yield any results. Thus, the Commission had not attempted to identify any text messages beyond what had been registered in its record management system, and it had therefore not even assessed whether any such text messages should be disclosed"; Highlights that the Ombudsman found that this was maladministration; 5d _________________ 5d https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/de cision/en/158295

Amendment 35 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8 a (new)

8 a. Welcomes the continuous efforts of the Ombudsman to improve lobbying transparency and ethics, in particular strengthening the Code of Conduct for Commissioners, public record of meetings between Commissioners with lobbyists and proactive publication of Commissioners’ travel expenses;

Amendment 36 #

Kosma ZŁOTOWSKI, Ryszard CZARNECKI, Angel DZHAMBAZKI, Andrey SLABAKOV

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8 b (new)

8b. Underlines that Qatargate shed a new light on the lobbying and policymaking in the EU; welcomes Ombudsman’s critical assessment of the scandal and poor EU’s response to it;

Amendment 37 #

Motion for a resolution
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)

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

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 4 #

Kosma ZŁOTOWSKI, Ryszard CZARNECKI, Angel DZHAMBAZKI, Andrey SLABAKOV

Motion for a resolution
Recital F

F. whereas in 2022, the greater part of the inquiries concerned the Commission (197 inquiries or 57.1 %), while the next largest numbers concerned the European Personnel Selection Office (22 inquiries or 6.3 %), European Parliament (19 inquiries or 5.5 %), and the European External Action Service (16 inquiries or 4.6 %); whereas the remaining inquiries were distributed as follows: the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) (14 inquiries or 4.3 %), the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (7 inquiries or 2 %), other EU institutions or bodies (46 inquiries or 13.5 %), and other EU agencies (23 inquiries or 6.7 %);

Amendment 40 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10

10. 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; welcomes in this regard the Ombudsman’s efforts to improve the transparency standards in terms of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF);

Amendment 41 #

Motion for a resolution
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 ~~better~~fair 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)

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)

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 44 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12

12. ~~Acknowledg~~Emphasises the importance for all institutions of treating access to documents requests in timely manner, so that the relevance of the information is preserved; welcomes the additional resources dedicated by the Commission to improving efficiency in the handling of access to documents requests; notes however the Ombudman’s findings that the Commission continues to incur systemic and significant delays in processing requests for public access to documents; recalls that the Ombudsman assessed that the Commission requires a fundamental restructuring of its approach to processing access to document requests; calls on the Commission to act upon the recommendations issued by the Ombudsman and to set it as a matter of high priority;

Amendment 45 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12

12. Acknowledges the importance for all institutions of treating access to documents requests in timely manner, so that the relevance of the information is preserved; welcomes the additional ~~resources dedicated by the Commission~~Ombudsman’s special report in her strategic inquiry concerning the time the Commission takes to deal with requests for public access to documents; underlines that the public access to EU institution’s documents is a fundamental right given effect through Regulation 1049/2001; stresses the need for sufficient resources to be dedicated by the EU insitutions to improv~~ing~~e efficiency in the handling of access to documents requests and welcomes the additional resources dedicated by the European Commission in this regard;

Amendment 46 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12 a (new)

12 a. Takes note of the Ombudsman’s inquiry, launched in 2021, into Commission’s alleged failure to identify and disclose the text messages exchanged between the Commission President in her professional capacity and the CEO of a pharmaceutical company on the purchase of a COVID-19 vaccine; is worried about the Ombudsman’s conclusions, published in 2022, that the Commission’s refusal to grant public access to these text messages constituted maladministration;

Amendment 47 #

Kosma ZŁOTOWSKI, Ryszard CZARNECKI, Angel DZHAMBAZKI, Andrey SLABAKOV

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13

13. ~~Notes the Ombudsman’s work in issuing practical~~Stresses 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 foull~~owing~~y complying with these recommendations in order to bring the practices of the EU administration into line with modern communication methods; ~~welcomes~~takes note of the Commission’s response that it will issue further guidance on modern communication tools such as text messages;

Amendment 48 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13

13. ~~Not~~Acknowledges the Ombudsman’s ~~work in issuing practical recommendations for the EU administration on the recording of work-related text and~~ inquiry on the text messages between the Commission President and the CEO of a pharmaceutical company; welcomes the Ombudsman’s recommendations to combat similar cases of maladminist~~ant messages~~ration and stresses the importance for the EU institutions of following these recommendations in order to bring the practices of the EU administration into line with modern communication methods; ~~welcomes the Commission’s response that it will issue further guidance on modern communication tools such as text messages~~underlines the particular importance of recognising that work-related text and instant messages are ‘documents’ within the meaning of Regulation 1049/2001 on public access to documents and respecting this principle;

Amendment 49 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13

13. ~~Not~~Welcomes the Ombudsman’s work in issuing practical recommendations for the EU administration on the recording of work-related text and instant messages ~~and stresses the importance for~~; calls on the EU institutions tof follow~~ing~~ these recommendations in order to bring the practices of the EU administration into line with modern communication methods; welcomes in this regard the Commission’s response that it will issue further guidance on modern communication tools such as text messages;

Amendment 5 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital I a (new)

I a. whereas in 2022, the Ombudsman has asked the Council to grant faster access to legislative documents so that the public can effectively participate in discussions on draft EU laws;1b _________________ 1b https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/ne ws-document/en/157774;

Amendment 50 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13 a (new)

13 a. Urges the European Commission to improve its administrative practices and to clearly demonstrate that transparency is the rule and a priority in handling the requests for public access to documents, as failing to do so could undermine the transparency of the entire EU administration and ultimately the citizens’ trust in the European project;

Amendment 51 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13 b (new)

13 b. Calls on the Council of the European Union to learn a lesson from the Ombudsman’s inquiry into the Council’s refusal to give full public access to documents related to negotiations on the draft ‘Digital Markets Act’ which, in 2022, resulted in Ombudsman’s conclusion that there was maladministration, and to apply the highest standards of transparency in these cases, especially when the Ombudsman has already identified problems in previous strategic inquiries concerning the transparency of the Council’s legislative process and the transparency of the Council’s decision-making during the COVID-19 crisis; recalls that transparency is one of the key principles set out in the EU treaties and that lack of transparency risks to diminish the citizens’ trust in the European institutions and the EU as a whole;

Amendment 52 #

Motion for a resolution
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 53 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15

15. Points out that the Ombudsman conducted a strategic inquiry into how Frontex complies with its fundamental rights obligations under its expanded mandate under Regulation 2019/18962 ; stresses the importance of applying high transparency standards, allowing for public scrutiny, and ensuring full respect for fundamental rights in all of Frontex’ operations; calls on Frontex to ensure an adequate follow-up to the recommendations issued by the Ombudsman; _________________ 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 54 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15 a (new)

15 a. Notes the Ombudsman’s inquiry into the Commission’s monitoring system of the Croatian authorities’ respect for fundamental rights in the context of border management operations supported by EU funds, after which the Ombudsman criticised the Commission for its delay in setting up an appropriate monitoring mechanism for border management by the Croatian authorities; urges the Commission to always react promptly to the Ombudsman’s suggestions for improvement, in particular in cases like this one, when significant shortcomings are identified;

Amendment 55 #

Motion for a resolution
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;

Amendment 56 #

Kosma ZŁOTOWSKI, Ryszard CZARNECKI, Angel DZHAMBAZKI

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17

17. Takes note that in 2022, the Statute of the European Ombudsman was updated with implementing provisions detailing the working procedures of the Ombudsman’s Office; believes that the new provisions will contribute to improving the Ombudman’s work;

Amendment 57 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 20

20. Encourages the Ombudsman to continue the exchanges on experiences and best practices with national ombudsmen through the European Network of Ombudsmen (ENO); appreciates that the 2022 ENO annual conference focused on best practices for helping refugees, in particular in the context of the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and addressed the effects of the digitalisation of public services on citizens’ rights; commends the addition of the Ukrainian and Moldovan ombudsman’s offices to the ENO;

Amendment 58 #

Kosma ZŁOTOWSKI, Ryszard CZARNECKI, Angel DZHAMBAZKI, Andrey SLABAKOV

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 20 a (new)

20a. Welcomes continuous efforts of the Ombudsman to further improve visibility of its activities, including via online tools, including the multilingual website offering assistance in all 24 official languages of the EU;

Amendment 59 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 21

21. ~~Encourag~~Welcomes the fruitful long- standing dialogue between the Ombudsman and the Committee on Petitions of the European Parliament; underlines that the intensive collaboration between these two bodies helps to increase the democratic accountability of the EU institutions;

Amendment 6 #

Kosma ZŁOTOWSKI, Ryszard CZARNECKI, Angel DZHAMBAZKI, Andrey SLABAKOV

Motion for a resolution
Recital I b (new)

I b. whereas in 2022, the Ombudsman has criticised how the Commission handled a request for public access to text messages between its President and the Pfizer CEO and has found that the refusal of the Commission to grant access to these text messages was maladministration;4c _________________ 4c https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/de cision/en/158295; https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/ne ws-document/en/151742;

Amendment 60 #

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 21

21. Encourages the fruitful dialogue between the Ombudsman and the Committee on Petitions of the European Parliament; underlines that the intensive collaboration between these two bodies helps to increase the democratic accountability of the EU institutions and bringing them closer to the citizens;

Amendment 7 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital I c (new)

I c. whereas in 2022, the Ombudsman has opened an inquiry into how the European Central Bank (ECB) handles ‘revolving doors’;7h _________________ 7h https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/ne ws-document/en/153137

Amendment 8 #

Motion for a resolution
Recital J a (new)

J a. whereas in 2022, the Ombudsman opened a strategic inquiry concerning the time the European Commission takes to deal with requests for public access to documents which resulted in the conclusion that there are systemic and significant delays in the Commission’s processing of requests for public access to documents, constituting maladministration;

Amendment 9 #