Acting on a complaint brought by the European watchdog group Statewatch, the European Ombudsman this week found maladministration by the European Commission for its failure to produce an annual report of access to documents for 2005. The Commission had claimed that inadequate staff and other obligations made it impossible to comply with the legal obligation to produce the report. In a strongly worded rebuke, the Ombudsman stated that “the instance of maladministration revealed by the present inquiry is especially deplorable since the publication of reports is a key mechanism of accountability to, and communication with, European citizens.” Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor, comments: “The Commission is the custodian of EU law and as such has an absolute duty to carry out its obligations under the Regulation. Not to do so sets a very bad example to the myriad of agencies and bodies which have been, or will be, set up across the EU.”
Read more about the case on the Statewatch Web site.
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