Strasbourg, 26/06/2002 (Agence Europe) - European Ombudsman Jacob Söderman welcomed the announcement by the European Commission of its intention to soon present an action plan on equal opportunities in order to encourage members of ethnic minorities to apply for recruitment competitions for posts at the Community institutions. The announcement follows the inquiry opened by the European Ombudsman further to a complaint filed by a Dutch citizen concerning the possible existence of racism in the recruitment procedures of the EU institutions. The complaint was founded on the fact that there is only a tiny proportion of people from such minorities among the employees of the institutions despite the fact that 30 million individuals belong to minorities in the European Union.