OmbudsmanThe European Origins, Establishment, Evolution Commemorative volume published on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the institution OmbudsmanThe European Origins, Establishment, Evolution Office for Official Publications of the European Communities Luxembourg © 2005 The European Ombudsman and the authors All rights reserved. The views expressed in this publication are those of the individual authors. Reproduction for educational and non-commercial purposes is permitted provided that the source is acknowledged. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2005 ISBN 92-95022-85-8 Printed in Belgium PRINTED ON WHITE CHLORINE-FREE PAPER Contents Introduction P. Nikiforos Diamandouros 1 1 Trends Leading to the Establishment of a European Ombudsman Hans Gammeltoft-Hansen 13 2 The Spanish Proposal to the Intergovernmental Conference on Political Union Carlos Moreiro González 27 3 The Danish Proposal to the Intergovernmental Conference on Political Union Peter Biering 38 4 The Process of Drafting the European Ombudsman’s Statute Ezio Perillo 52 5 The Early Years of the European Ombudsman Jacob Söderman 83 6 The European Ombudsman: Protecting Citizens’ Rights and Strengthening Parliamentary Scrutiny Paul Magnette 106 iv Contents 7 Parallel Functions and Co-operation: the European Parliament’s Committee on Petitions and the European Ombudsman Saverio Baviera 126 8 The Policy-Relationship between the European Ombudsman and the European Parliament’s Committee on Petitions Eddy Newman 143 9 Safeguarding the Rights of European Citizens: the European Commission Working with the European Ombudsman Anita Gradin and Ranveig Jacobsson 162 10 The European Commission’s Internal Procedure for Dealing with the European Ombudsman’s Inquiries Jean-Claude Eeckhout and Philippe Godts 167 11 Special Reports Submitted by the European Ombudsman to the European Parliament Roy Perry 185 12 Holding the Administration Accountable in Respect of its Discretionary Powers: the Roles and Approaches of the Court, the Parliament and the European Ombudsman Gregorio Garzón Clariana 191 13 The European Ombudsman’s Resources - the Budget and Related Issues Juan Manuel Fabra Vallès 210 14 Reflections on the Future Role of the Ombudsman in a Changing Europe P. Nikiforos Diamandouros 217 Contents v Annex I: Key Documents and References 241 Annex II: The Spanish Proposal for a European Ombudsman 249 Annex III: The Danish Proposal for a European Ombudsman 252 Annex IV: The Treaty Basis for the European Ombudsman 254 Annex V: The Statute of the European Ombudsman 256 Contributors 264 Introduction P. Nikiforos Diamandouros 1 “...[t]he work of the Ombudsman should focus on helping European citizens and others entitled to apply to the Ombudsman, to exercise their rights fully and, in so doing, to give the European administra- tion a more human face”. (Jacob Söderman, the first European Ombudsman, during his solemn undertaking before the Court of Justice of the European Communities, 27 September 1995.) When the first European Ombudsman, Jacob Söderman, was elect- ed by the European Parliament on 12 July 1995, a new era in the his- tory of the European Union began to unfold. The Maastricht Treaty on European Union, adopted three years previously, had created the institution of Ombudsman and had empowered it “...to receive com- plaints from any citizen of the Union or any natural or legal person residing or having its registered office in a Member State concerning instances of maladministration in the activities of the Community institutions or bodies”. On 27 September 1995, assisted by two mem- bers of staff, Mr Söderman took up his duties. While Mr Söderman’s solemn undertaking before the Court of Justice that day can be seen as the birth of the European Ombudsman institution, and while its conception can be dated to the signing of the Maastricht Treaty on 7 February 1992, the idea of creating an ombudsman at the European level had already been discussed for over a decade before the Maastricht Treaty was drafted. In fact, the first proposal, by the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, was voted in May 1979. 1 In preparing this introduction, I collaborated closely with Ben Hagard, Joint Head of the European Ombudsman’s Communications Sector. I am grateful for his invaluable assistance and for the time and energy he devoted to this task. 2 P. Nikiforos Diamandouros In order to understand the evolution of the European Ombudsman into the institution that I have the privilege of leading today, it is nec- essary to study not only the first decade of its existence, but also the decade and a half that preceded the institution’s creation. It is only in its historical context, and in terms of the many and conflicting options that presented themselves throughout the last quarter centu- ry, that the genesis and subsequent development of the institution can be fully understood. Mindful of the relatively small number of attempts that had hither- to been made to record the steps leading up to the creation of the European Ombudsman and of the institution’s early years, and equally aware that much of the detailed knowledge needed to attempt such an exercise was limited to those actors who had been centrally involved in the project at the time, I decided to host a work- shop in Strasbourg to focus on the origins and establishment of the European Ombudsman institution and to evaluate its development. The “Founders’ Workshop”, as it became known, was held on 25 and 26 June 2004 and brought together a dozen key individuals involved at the various stages of the institution’s history and pre-history, as well as two academics who had both extensively studied the institution during the last decade. The Founders’ Workshop aimed to build up a complete picture of events, to uncover as many of the central doc- uments involved as possible, and thus to assemble a repository of knowledge that could not only be of historical value to researchers in the future, but could also potentially be of benefit to policy makers and those more directly involved in leading the institution forward. The Workshop was divided into three thematic sessions, covering the origins of the Maastricht Treaty provisions on citizenship in gen- eral and the European Ombudsman in particular, the drafting of the European Ombudsman’s Statute and the establishment of the Ombudsman’s office. For the first session, on the origins of the Treaty provisions, the Workshop benefited greatly from the presence of Carlos Moreiro González, Professor of European Community law at the Carlos III University in Madrid, and of Peter Biering, a diplomat involved in the negotiations leading to the Danish Treaty proposal, who were able to shed light respectively on the steps leading up to, and the thinking behind, the Spanish and Danish government proposals for the establishment of an ombudsman at the European level. As the great French political thinker and historian Alexis de Tocqueville so Introduction 3 accurately observed, “History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies” 2. The presence of the National Ombudsman of Denmark, Hans Gammeltoft-Hansen, who had been a key participant in the negotiations leading to the creation of the European Ombudsman, and whose institution has served as a model for ombudsman offices the world over, was therefore of great benefit. In the second session, on the drafting of the European Ombudsman’s Statute, the detailed recollections of Ezio Perillo, the European Parliament official responsible for the work on the Statute of the European Ombudsman within the legal service of the European Parliament, together with the European Commission per- spective provided by Jean-Claude Eeckhout, former Director at the European Commission responsible for relations with the European Parliament and the European Ombudsman between 1985 and 2001, enabled us all to better understand the detailed, complex and sensi- tive negotiations and compromises that preceded the establishment of the European Ombudsman and shaped its scope and working methods. Gregorio Garzón Clariana, the Head of the European Parliament’s Legal Service since 1994, provided a useful framework for the third session, on the establishment of the Ombudsman’s office, by identi- fying two key themes for discussion - the appointment of the Ombudsman and the establishment of his office, on the one hand, and the procedures for dealing with complaints and the review crite- ria on the other. The appointment of the first Ombudsman turned out to be a rather long and drawn-out affair, with over a year elapsing between the formal adoption of the Ombudsman’s Statute by the European Parliament in March 1994 and the election of the first Ombudsman in July 1995. The Head of Secretariat of the European Parliament’s Committee on Petitions between 1989 and 1998, Saverio Baviera, and the Chairman of the Committee on Petitions of the European Parliament from 1994 to 1997, Eddy Newman, were ideally placed to present, from both a procedural and a political point of view, the circumstances related to the appointment of the first Ombudsman. In terms of the establishment of the office, Juan Manuel Fabra Vallès, Member of the European Parliament between 1994 and 2000 and President of the European Court of Auditors 2 Alexis de Tocqueville, L’Ancien régime et la Révolution, Paris, 1856, Chapter VI. 4 P. Nikiforos Diamandouros between 2002 and 2005, addressed the issue from a budgetary per- spective. Once the institution had been established and the first Ombudsman had taken office, the primary task of the Ombudsman, to deal with complaints, began immediately. The interinstitutional co-operation required to enable the Ombudsman to work effectively in this respect was addressed by several of the Workshop partici- pants, including Anita Gradin, Member of the European Commission between 1995 and 1999 and Commissioner responsible for relations with the European Parliament and the European Ombudsman during that time.