EU Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly to speak at Dataharvest+

How does the office of the EU Ombudsman work? What are its tasks? Does it mostly have to react to citizens’ worries and complaints, or also actively put issues on the agenda?

The Ombudsman deals with complaints about the EU administration, for example when EU institutions refuse to give access to documents or information, when conflict of interests situations arise or when companies or NGOs have problems in the framework of EU funded programmes or projects. We also have the power to open investigations on our own initiative. The new Ombudsman, Emily O'Reilly, uses this instrument in a strategic way, focusing on key areas of systemic problems in the EU administration. We opened, for example, own-initiative inquiries into the "revolving doors" phenomenon in the European Commission, and into the functioning of the European Citizens' Initiative, which empowers one million citizens to propose EU legislation.

What are the most important cases you are dealing with at the moment?

One of the most important on-going cases is the investigation into how the Commission deals with "revolving doors" cases and potential conflicts of interest situations when high-level EU officials leave their positions in the EU institutions to work for the private sector. The Ombudsman expects "gold standards" from the EU administration in this respect, as this is key for citizens to trust the EU. We already inspected several files and are currently waiting for the Commission's response to a whole set of questions we send them in this context.

Where do the current priorities lie for the Ombudsman?

Her priorities are straightforward: visibility, impact, relevance. She wants to increase the visibility of the Ombudsman's work and her powers, have a greater impact on how the institutions change their administrative culture and take her recommendations on board and be, overall, more relevant when it comes to some of the key problems the EU administration is facing.

Ms. O’Reilly is a former journalist herself. How do her knowledge and experience as a journalist play a part in the way she works as Ombudsman?

As a former investigative journalist, she has an extremely good feeling for what the key questions and tricky points are in often very complex cases. She also has a great sense of what should have priority and what not. She wants to prioritise cases which improve the EU administration for the benefit of the people, especially in the areas of transparency, ethical standards and accountability. Less urgent are, for example, complaints we receive from EU officials or staff cases. The Ombudsman thinks it should be in the first place up to the institutions themselves to tackle such problems, unless a broader fundamental rights principle is at stake.

Can you lift a corner of the veil on what Ms. O’Reilly will be talking about at Dataharvest+?

She will talk about several issues that might be highly interesting or relevant for journalists in the coming months. One of them is the "revolving doors" case I mentioned. It is particularly important in a year in which we will see a new Commission and in which many cabinet members or other high-level EU officials might get interesting job offers outside the EU institutions.

She will also raise the very important issue of clinical trial data transparency. The European Ombudsman, the European Parliament and the European Medicines Agency are in favour of maximum transparency of clinical trial data, in the interest of millions of people who need to know about potential side effects or study results for medicines they are taking. On the other side, there is of course the pharmaceutical industry, trying to withhold as much commercially sensitive information as possible. Clearly a balance needs to be found.

Furthermore, Emily O'Reilly will explain all about our recent investigation into Frontex and its role concerning alleged human rights violations at Europe's borders and important access to documents cases we recently dealt with.

Dataharvest+ takes place from Friday 9 until Sunday morning 11 May 2014 in Brussels, with a pre-Dataharvest Hackaton on Thursday 8 May. The conference is the biggest and most relevant networking event for investigative and data journalists in Europe. More information via www.dataharvest.eu.