ENISA was pleased today, (19th, July) to host a visit from the European Ombudsman, as part of his series of “own-initiative” visits to all European Union Agencies.
ENISA is the 12th EU-body that the European Ombudsman Professor Nikiforos Diamandouros has visited so far, since 2011. He was joined this time by his Legal Advisor Mr Antonios Antoniadis.
The European Ombudsman is looking at administrative good practices of all EU-bodies, to assure that there are practices, policies and principles in place for good administration. This includes, amongst other things, recruitment, selection procedures, governance procedures and transparency, whistleblowing, confidentiality rules, ethics of good administration and conduct for civil servants, usability and availability of the web site as to be transparent, and other matters of good administration for public bodies. Having good administration in place is part of making the EU system more democratically transparent for the citizens. The office of the European Ombudsman works with the public EU-bodies in a constructive dialogue to improve this system.
During the visit the European Ombudsman met the Executive Director of ENISA, Professor Udo Helmbrecht, relevant ENISA staff members, and the ENISA Staff Committee.
European Ombudsman’s work more in detail
The European Ombudsman works together with the inspected bodies, as an external mechanism of control. His office constitutes a repository and access to a vast amount of knowledge on good administrative behaviour. This is to the benefit and at the disposal of all EU bodies. They can receive administrative advice, and use the European Ombudsman as a mechanism of guidance, who can transmit best practices of other bodies, so as to improve the proceedings of a particular EU body in a specific field. The office of the Ombudsman investigates the practices and administration practices of the EU bodies, so as to secure and improve the good, democratic and modern administrative behaviour with its advice and recommendations. The European Ombudsman also recently published his guide on ethical principles for EU officials .