Brussels, 17/04/2001 (Agence Europe) - Jacob Söderman, who presented his annual report 2000 to the European Parliament's Committee on Petitions, felt that "the year 2000 saw the biggest leap forward in the creation of a citizens' Europe since Maastricht", with the proclamation in Nice of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. "The procedure used for drafting the Charter was exemplary", he said, welcoming the very transparent nature of the Convention's work. He stressed that the Charter recognises the right to good administration and recalled that the Commission is currently preparing a White Paper on Governance. "I hope that the Commission will propose concrete measures to make the right to good administration a living reality for European citizens", said Mr Söderman, before welcoming the adoption, by eight decentralised agencies, of the code of good administrative behaviour that he had proposed. The two agencies that have not yet done so are the Office of Harmonisation within the Internal Market (OHMI) and the European Training Foundation (ETF). The large institutions find it far more difficult to adopt rules even if the Commission has done so, with a text which is not entirely satisfactory. This being so, and as the Ombudsman showed his delight when speaking to journalists, the Commission very rapidly adopted a decision calling on its services to comply with the Charter of Fundamental Rights. The Ombudsman hopes that the three main institutions will manage to adopt a common legislation, as he had proposed. Furthermore, he plans in coming days to write to the Council to request that it adopt the Ombudsman's model code of good administrative behaviour.
The European Ombudsman also returned to the evolution of the dossier on access to documents, which he believes is a source of concern. His fears mainly concern aspects linked to security and defence issues. Mr Söderman recalled that military secrets have always been well protected in the countries that have a tradition of transparency. He spoke of a "lack of experience" at Union level on such matters, which leads the Member States to an "over-zealous interpretation" of the rules on data protection. The result is that "the Council has drafted texts that are unnecessarily broad. They include sweeping new powers to keep documents secret even if they have nothing to do with military or security questions". He went on to add: "I would like to remind the Council that European citizens should not be thought of as the enemy, but as friends". While admitting that all systems of public access to documents have an exception to protect individual privacy, Mr Söderman reaffirmed that providing information to an administrative body in secret is not a fundamental right and that the protection of personal data must not become a "handy new weapon with which to defend administrative secrecy".
The Ombudsman and Internet
In the year 2000, the Internet really became a working tool of the European Ombudsman who received around 4,500 requests for information via this channel as well as no fewer than 420 complaints, that is, 24% of the total of 1732 complaints received during the year (as opposed to 17% in 1999). In order to improve the drafting and the rate of admissibility of complaints, the services created a form that can be filled in directly, with an electronic surveillance system to inform the user of errors or omissions. This system should soon be available in all the official languages of the EU.
Comprehensive report to illustrate the Ombudsman's daily activity in the year 2000
The 297-page annual report by the European Ombudsman is a mine of information regarding his activity, but also on concrete cases and the treatment reserved for such cases. There is a particularly interesting heading on questions addressed to the European Ombudsman by national or regional mediators in the context of ever-developing cooperation. The report must now be examined by the parliamentary committee on petitions that will adopt a report for the European Parliament plenary session with discussion and vote no doubt during the July session in Strasbourg. Last year, the 1999 annual report was among the three most consulted documents on the EP Internet site.
In 2000, the Ombudsman dealt with 2017 cases, of which 284 were carried over from 1999, and 1732 new complaints. Out of the latter, 1539 were directly from individuals, 114 had been sent by associations and 76 from companies. Unfortunately, the rate of complaints not entering the mandate of the Ombudsman is still very high: 70%. Under these circumstances, complainants were advised to apply to: - a national or regional mediator (546 cases-); - the EP's Committee on Petitions (92 cases); - the European Commission (185 cases); - other bodies (186 cases). In all, the Ombudsman carried out 477 inquiries (284 initiated in 2000 and 192 begun in 1999). On 31 March 2001, 289 inquiries had been closed. Ninety-six cases were settled by the institution concerned after the inquiry had been opened (Mr Söderman stressed that this figure, which is very high in comparison to what is happening in national institutions, proves the good intent of the Community institutions).
In seven cases, the complainant withdrew the complaint. No bad administration was noted in 135 cases. In one case, the Ombudsman's inquiry resulted in a friendly settlement. Forty-one inquiries were closed with a critical remark from the Ombudsman and 14 led him to address a draft recommendation to the institution concerned. The Commission remains the main institution concerned by the inquiries (239 cases) followed by the Parliament (18 cases), the Council (6) and the Court of Auditors (1). The complaints filed were mainly on problems of transparency, the lack or refusal of information (28%) but also on avoidable delays (24%), a form of injustice or abuse of power (11%), discrimination (8%), rights to defence and procedure (8%), negligence (7%), and an error of law (6%). With 279 complaints (16% of the total), France is the Member State which files the largest number of complaints with the European Ombudsman. A percentage which is also higher than the share of the French population in the total EU population: 15.6%). We give below, for each country, the number of complaints filed in 2000, followed by the percentage and the share of the population: - Germany (213 complaints/13%, 21.9% of the EU population); - Spain (222/13%/10.6%); - Italy (193/11%/15.4%); - United Kingdom (141/8%/15.7%); - Belgium (126/7%/2.7%); - Austria (88/5%/2.1%); - Finland è76/4%/1.3%); - Portugal (58/4%/2.6%); - Netherlands (52/3%/4.1%); - Greece (46/3%/2.8%); - Sweden (58/3%/2.4%); - Ireland (40/2%/0.9%); - Luxembourg (36/2%/0.1%); - Denmark (19/1%/1.4%). Eighty-five complaints (5% of the total) came from third countries.