News - Date Monday | 25 November 2024
Case 363/2024/ACB 

Opened on Thursday | 07 March 2024 - Decision on Monday | 25 November 2024 - Institution concerned European Commission ( Maladministration found ) - Country Netherlands

The Ombudsman has found maladministration in how the European Commission handled an access to documents request concerning the preparation of a meeting between its President, the Italian and Dutch Prime Ministers, and the President of Tunisia.

In particular, she criticised the Commission for failing to identify any documents covering exchanges with Member States as well as internal exchanges in the lead up to the meeting.

The meeting took place in Tunis on 11 June 2023, shortly before the EU and Tunisia signed a wide-ranging Memorandum of Understanding covering topics such as migration, economic development, trade, and green energy.

The Commission had initially failed to identify any documents as falling within the scope of the access request, but did then identify 13 documents, including internal briefings, when asked to review its decision.

The Ombudsman noted that holding such a high-level meeting would have required prior exchanges between different departments in the Commission, as well as with Member States. At the very least, there must have been exchanges with Italy and the Netherlands whose Prime Ministers had participated.

Despite this, none of the 13 documents the Commission identified concerned these types of exchanges prior to the June meeting. The Commission also did not provide any reasonable explanation for the absence of these additional documents.

The Ombudsman further criticised the lack of a sense of urgency in handling the access request. She noted that it took the Commission nearly 12 months to review its initial access decision, despite the fact that these reviews should take a maximum of 30 working days under the EU’s access to documents regulation. She urged the Commission to improve its handling of access to documents requests as a matter of priority.