EU watchdog candidates complain their own recruitment is faulty

Candidates to be the EU’s next Ombudsman are already complaining about a lack of transparency from Brussels – in their own recruitment process. 

Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) will vote in December on who should succeed Emily O’Reilly, who since 2013 has been responsible for probing maladministration in EU institutions. 

Her would-be replacements are quickly learning what life is like at the sharp end of Brussels bureaucracy.

“The process was not 100% transparent … It was not an easy one to get all the information” about how and when she needed to gain MEPs’ support, Claudia Mahler, one of those in the running to be next administrative watchdog, told Euronews. 

“I was almost there to complain about the process” to “the President of the Parliament,” she added, citing a lack of clarity over which part of the chamber’s administration was in charge, and over how to gain access to the institution. 

So far, six hopefuls, including Mahler, have gained the 39 MEP signatures needed to attend a committee hearing scheduled for 3 December – and it wasn’t easy.  

“The major task for all of us is to reach the MEPs … to get the chance to tell them even that I’m a candidate,” Mahler said.

She’s well aware of the irony of the situation – given that, should she succeed, her duties would include examining deficiencies in EU recruitment and personnel processes.

“This is very often one of the big issues also for the Ombudsman office: If everybody has the same access, for example, to apply for a job… I already experienced how hard it could be,” said Mahler, who is currently a UN independent expert on the rights of older people, and a team leader at the German Institute for Human Rights, which she argues is the closest Germany has to a national Ombudsman.

“I just said as a kind of a joke, this might be my first complaint which I need to deal with” should she gain the coveted EU post, she said.

The European Parliament’s press service told Euronews the appointment process was in line with the institution’s rules of procedure.

“Each MEP may endorse only one candidate, and this preference is expressed in a standardised form, provided by EP services immediately after the publication of the notice calling for nominations” in late August, a spokesperson said in a statement.  

The Petitions Committee is responsible for organising hearings, while the overall chamber takes a final decision via secret ballot, the spokesperson added.

Yet some of Mahler’s rivals clearly share her concerns.

“Unfortunately the system has been that everyone has to find this, let’s say, promoter” — an MEP who can internally market a candidate to colleagues, fellow applicant Emilio De Capitani told Euronews – a fact he already finds problematic.

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The ombudsman “is an institution which is appointed by the parliament, but at the same time it is independent,” he said, adding: “You should not have sort of contracts with a member or even a group, because you are there to implement the law.”

“I wrote to the person dealing with this by saying that maybe next time a different procedure should be followed … this is something that can be solved easily,” De Capitani added.

Though now retired, De Capitani was a longtime staffer in the Parliament’s own Civil Liberties Committee, and is on a longstanding legal crusade, fought via the courts, to inject more transparency into EU lawmaking processes.

It’s clear he and Mahler will offer MEPs a very different pitch.

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“I’ve never been part of the European Union, which also gives me a new overview on the issue. I’m not biased in any circumstances,” Mahler told Euronews.

Other candidates include former Portuguese Deputy Ombudsman and Justice Minister Teresa Anjinho, the Dutch Ombudsman Reinier van Zutphen, Marino Fardelli, Ombudsman for the Lazio region of Italy, and Estonian Supreme Court Judge Julia Laffranque.