Brussels, 10/03/2000 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday, the Conference of the Presidents of the European Parliament discussed the dispute that has broken out between the European Commission and the European Ombudsman, Jacob Soederman, who, by means of the press, criticised the Commission's policy regarding access to documents (also see EUROPE of 4 February, p.8, for what Mr. Soederman had to say to the Convention that is drawing up the Charter of Fundamental rights) and decided to invite Mr. Soederman to its next meeting to explain himself.
On 3 March, Mr. Prodi wrote a letter to Mrs. Fontaine (as authority appointing the Ombudsman) in which he said that, in an article published in the "Wall Street Journal" on 24 February entitled "The EU's Transparent Bid for Opacity", Mr. Soederman "describes in a manner I find polemical and extreme the Commission's proposals" on access to documents. "In addition, he is so badly informed that it seemed to me necessary to reestablish a little objectivity by publishing a response, at the risk of pursuing in public a controversy between one Union institution and a person appointed by another", writes Mr. Prodi, adding: "I well understand that the Ombudsman exercises his office in total independence", and his comments "will remain welcome", but it is "highly prejudicial to the normal functioning of the institutions but to receive these comments through the press in an emotional and seriously erroneous form". Mr. Prodi, for whom this affair could be "usefully raised on the occasion of a forthcoming trilogy", in his letter, expresses the concern of the college as a whole for which this seems to be an "arguable usage" of the role of Ombudsman.
The spokesman for the Group of Europe of Democracies and Diversities, Patrick Reynolds, told the press on Friday that a "minority" of the members of the Conference of Presidents had first tried to present Mr. Soederman as the "culprit" in this affair, but that Jens-Peter Bonde, member of that political group, had risen up against that attitude, and that finally the presidents of the EPP, Liberal and United Left Groups, Messrs. Poettering, Cox and Wurtz had stressed that there was no question of making Mr. Soederman undergo a kind of "trial".