Testing times for the EU’s Ombudsman

Date: 08/10/1998

Last month's Commission recruitment competition fiasco continues to send ripples of outrage around the EU.

Personnel Commissioner Erkki Liikanen's shock announcement that the competition would be cancelled after revelations of widespread cheating prompted an avalanche of irate phone calls to the office of European Ombudsman Jacob Södermann in Strasbourg.

So far, the office has received six official complaints about the affair, and many more are expected. “We will treat these as complaints about general maladministration,” said one member of Södermann's staff.