Verbatim report of proceedings

Monday, 14 February 2022 - Strasbourg

Activities of the European Ombudsman – annual report 2020 (debate)

  Ramona Strugariu, on behalf of the Renew Group. – Madam President, the European Ombudsman is and should remain our natural ally in the fight for transparency, for high ethical standards and good administration in the EU.

I would like to congratulate you, Ms O’Reilly and your office, for the work undertaken in 2020. Under particularly difficult circumstances, you managed to continue working to safeguard our citizens’ fundamental rights.

We appreciate in particular, the strategic work undertaken for evaluating the performance of the EU administration in the context of the COVID—19 crisis. As you have rightfully emphasised, in times of crisis, the obligations of transparency are not diminished. Abiding by them is even more crucial now in order to preserve citizens’ trust.

We appreciate also the efforts to better inform the citizens about your mandate and to streamline the treatment of complaints, including in the framework of the strategy towards 2024. When it comes to defending the citizens’ rights, we have a huge task ahead of us.

If we take the example of Next Generation EU, we need to ensure together better oversight on how these funds are used. 85% of citizens demand transparency and effective control on these funds, according to a special Eurobarometer for September 2021. I, myself, included such provisions in the text and I am counting on you and all our colleagues from all the political groups to fully support this approach.