Ombudsman raps CoR for second time in four months

Date: 04/10/01

By David Cronin

For the second time in the past four months, the EU citizen's watchdog has found the Brussels-based Committee of the Regions (CoR) guilty of maladministration in its recruitment procedures.

The decision by Ombudsman Jacob Söderman follows a complaint from a Dutch applicant, who had been shortlisted for a vacancy in one of the institution's political groupings, the European Alliance, in 1997.

Last year, however, another man - whose name had not appeared on that reserve list - was appointed to work for the same group. The complainant alleged that this breached the regulations on hiring officials as the post had been filled without any prior notice being given to those on the reserve list.

Although Söderman acknowledged that the 222-member CoR was not strictly obliged to inform those on the reserve list about the vacancy, he contended it had broken two written undertakings to the complainant that it would provide him with prior notification when such a vacancy arose. "Promises of good administration require that the [European] Community institutions and bodies respect the promises which they make to citizens," Söderman added. In June the Ombudsman reached a similar conclusion after investigating a complaint from a woman who had previously had a temporary job with the CoR. The woman was on the same reserve list for a long-term post as the Dutchman. Her protest also concerned the European Alliance, which bands together moderate nationalist parties from Belgium, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Spain's Basque region.

The CoR's recruitment procedures have provoked controversy almost from the assembly's inception in 1994. During the 1990s Union Syndicale, the main union representing EU officials, supported cases against two people who had been given lucrative CoR jobs without having sat the standard EU civil service exam, known as the concours. The European Court of Justice found against the CoR in both cases.

For the second time in four months, the EU citizens' watchdog has found the Brussels-based Committee of the Regions guilty of maladministration in its recruitment procedures.