Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-10-25-Speech-4-504-000"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20121025.34.4-504-000"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, in good health in the presence of the Commissioner for Health! I wish to thank you for this opportunity to address you on the subject of my annual report for the year 2011. I would like first of all to say that I am grateful to Parliament’s continued support for the work of the European Ombudsman. I wish also to express my sincere thanks to the Chair of the Committee on Petitions, Ms Mazzoni, for her thorough and insightful report on my activities, to which we just listened. As I have repeatedly stated, the support of Parliament and the collaboration of the Petitions Committee are essential contributors to the success of the European Ombudsman.
Making a priority of the policy goal of informing citizens, in March 2011 I held the biggest stakeholder event ever organised by the Ombudsman, which was entitled ‘Is the Lisbon Treaty delivering for citizens?’ Major speakers in this event included the President of the European Council, Mr Herman Van Rompuy, the then Vice-President of the European Parliament, Mrs Diana Wallis, and the Vice-President of the European Commission, Mrs Viviane Reding.
I also published, in 2011, a booklet entitled ‘Problems with the EU? Who can help you?’ This new publication provides information on a whole range of problem-solving mechanisms available to individuals who face problems with the EU. I note that the demand for this booklet has been higher than for any other publication in the entire history of the Ombudsman.
In view of the level of dissatisfaction with transparency in the EU, I used the occasion provided by the celebration of ‘International Right to Know Day’ on 28 September to call upon the EU administration to be more proactive as regards transparency. In that context I called on the EU institutions to adopt useful, citizen-friendly online registers of documents. Furthermore, as regards my own services, in early 2011 I began publishing, on my website, information on new inquiries as soon as they are opened. This new practice makes it easier for citizens to follow the progress of inquiries right from the start.
In 2009 I adopted a mission statement for the European Ombudsman institution which reads as follows: the European Ombudsman seeks fair outcomes to complaints against European Union institutions, encourages transparency and promotes an administrative culture of service. He aims to build trust through dialogue between citizens and the European Union and to foster the highest standards of behaviour in the Union’s institutions. In order best to implement this mission statement, in 2010 I developed and adopted a strategy for the institution which forms the basis of my initiatives and activities during my current mandate as Ombudsman.
Key points of this strategy include: first, strengthening the ongoing dialogue with complainants, civil society and other stakeholders in line with central commitments enshrined in the Treaty of Lisbon; second, identifying best practices from Ombudsman colleagues through, amongst others, cooperation in the European network of ombudsmen; and third, enhancing the Ombudsman’s role in promoting an administrative culture of service in the EU institutions. In order consistently to deliver good administration – a key component of being citizen-friendly – institutions and bodies need to nourish and nurture a culture of service to citizens. A body which seeks to promote such a culture of service will encourage the members of its staff not only to respect good administration as a legal right but also to be polite, helpful and cooperative in dealing with citizens, willing to explain their activities and the reasoning behind decisions taken and ready to accept public scrutiny of their conduct. With these considerations in mind, I concluded that it would be useful to produce a concise statement of these and other public service principles which could help promote citizens’ trust in the European civil service and the EU institutions. The Public Service Principles were published on 19 June this year and are contained in a very small leaflet, which is this one. Allow me to mention them briefly. One: commitment to the European Union and its citizens; two: integrity; three: objectivity; four: respect for others; five: transparency. I am grateful to DG Personnel for having distributed the principles to everyone working within Parliament on 4 October.
President, honourable Members, as I have repeatedly indicated, this statement of pubic service principles is neither the first nor the last word about the ethical standards that apply to the EU civil service. As the submissions to the public consultation made clear, the Staff Regulations, the Financial Regulation and the Ombudsman’s widely-adopted European code of good administrative behaviour already embody such standards, both explicitly and implicitly.
Furthermore, the idea of producing a statement of pubic service principles was not to develop new ethical standards but rather to make clear the expectations of both civil servants and citizens for making an everyday reality of the ethical standards to which the EU public administration already adheres. The added value of making the standards explicit is to help generate and focus a continuous, constructive discussion among civil servants and between civil servants and the public about what behaviour is ethically appropriate. The public consultation demonstrated the value of such a debate.
The principles do not seek to duplicate existing instruments or to be a substitute for revisiting, revising and supplementing those instruments where that may be necessary. Rather I expect them to be a rich source of ideas on which I will draw in working with the institutions of the EU in the future to encourage and nurture the institutional culture that makes the principles a living reality.
Let me now turn to the key statistics of the annual report. During 2011 I received a total of 2 510 complaints from citizens, companies, NGOs, associations and others. I try to help every complainant who turns to the Ombudsman, even in cases when the complaint is not within my mandate. We should not underestimate how important it is for citizens to be guided to the most appropriate complaint-handling mechanism and body from the outset and to be spared the frustrations and delays associated with having to identify the right institution on their own.
In January 2009 I launched an interactive guide on my website which is accessible in all 23 official languages. This guide aims to direct complainants to the body best placed to help them, be it my own services, the Petitions Committee of Parliament, the services of national original ombudsmen in the Member States, or existing problem-solving mechanisms established by the European Commission such as the ‘Your Europe’ portal or the Solvit network for cross-border problems.
The number of inadmissible complaints submitted to me continued to decline in 2011, this time by 111. In large part, I attribute this decline to the fact that, by using the interactive guide, more citizens are finding the right address to turn to the first time round. In 2011, more than 18 000 people received advice through the guide. Counting the number of requests for information replied to, and complaints that were dealt with, we can say that over 22 000 citizens were directly helped by the Ombudsman in 2011. Furthermore, the Ombudsman’s website received over 295 000 unique visitors.
In contrast to the reduction in the number of complaints outside my mandate, the number of inquiries opened in 2011 rose to 396, that is, showed an increase of 18 % (one-eight). This strength confirms that, increasingly, the people turning to the European Ombudsman are doing so for the right reasons. The large increase in inquiries opened is also a result of changes I have effected to my own procedures to make them more citizen-friendly. A new type of inquiry was introduced this past year to allow complainants to clarify their complaints in cases where I am not initially convinced that there are grounds to ask an EU institution for its opinion on the case.
A sustained reduction in critical remarks issued by my office is further positive evidence that the EU institutions are positively responding to my recommendations and that they are taking a more proactive role in resolving complaints and in enabling win-win outcomes. This is obviously always preferable to the complainant and the institution concerned. Over the last three years the number of critical remarks has averaged just above 34, whereas the average was just above 46 in the period 2006-2008.
This year I have again included in the annual report the category of ‘star cases’ in order to highlight illustrative examples of exemplary administrative practice by institutions and bodies revealed through my inquiries and, in addition, to emphasise that a central function of the Ombudsman institution is to strengthen and deepen a culture of service in the EU institutions and bodies by promoting and supporting best practice. Ten such star cases are highlighted in this year’s report.
The institutions’ willingness to cooperate with the Ombudsman to achieve a satisfactory resolution to complaints constitutes an important expression of their commitment to this culture of service. I also note that, in some of the cases, the constructive engagement of the complainants themselves also proved crucial to obtaining a win-win outcome.
According to a special Eurobarometer survey on citizens’ rights and on the performance of the EU administration, which was commissioned by the Parliament and the Ombudsman and was published during 2011, the right to move and reside freely in the EU is considered to be the most important citizen’s right (48 % of respondents). The second most important right is the right to good administration (33 %) followed by the right to complain to the Ombudsman (32 %). On the other hand, 42 % of respondents indicated that they are not satisfied with transparency in the EU administration, and 52 % said that the Ombudsman should ensure that citizens know their rights and how to use them."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata | |
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples