Maltese rank top for complaints

For the second year in a row, Malta has registered the highest number of complaints to the EU Ombudsman Office, on a per capita basis, when compared to the other member states.

According to the EU Ombudsman, Nikiforos Diamandouros, who presented his annual report in Brussels yesterday, complaints from Malta reached 40.

Although this may not seem high, it translates into a rate of 11.6 when compared to the size of its population and puts Malta at the top of the complainants table.

Sources close to the Ombudsman's office explained that where the rate is greater than one, it indicates that a country submits more complaints than might be expected, given the size of its population.

"The Maltese are complaining more than 11 times more than what we expect!" remarked the sources.

Spain produced the greatest number of complaints, 20 per cent of the total, followed by Germany, 11 per cent, France, 10 per cent and Poland, nine per cent. But relative to their population, most complaints came from Malta, Cyprus and Luxembourg.

According to the Ombudsman, many citizens still do not know that he can only investigate alleged bad administration by EU institutions and bodies, and not complaints against national or regional authorities, even if they involve Community law.

"Two thirds of the complaints are, therefore, outside my mandate," stated Mr Diamandouros.

Last year, the office received 3,920 complaints from EU citizens, companies, NGOs and associations with over one quarter of the inquiries concerning a lack of transparency in the EU administration, including the refusal to grant information.

According to the Ombudsman, the EU institutions have, over the years, done a lot to improve their services for the public but there is still a long way to go to create a fully open, transparent and accountable administration.

Most of the inquiries concerned the European Commission (68 per cent), followed by the European Personnel Selection Office, the European Parliament and the Council.

Among the alleged types of bad administration were a refusal to provide information, unfairness, abuse of power, discrimination, procedural errors and avoidable delays.

The Ombudsman dealt with 627 inquiries. Following his intervention, the EU institutions settled bills, paid interest, released documents, remedied injustices and apologised for mistakes.