Tako bi lahko razumeli besede Emily O’Reilly, ombudsmanke EU zadnjih 11 let. V podkastu za Politico je med drugim povedala, da ji “nikoli ni bilo lahko” z “močnimi consiglieriji”, ki sedijo v kabinetu predsednika/ce Komisije. “Consiglieri” se v angleščini uporablja kot izraz za svetovalce mafijskega šefa. Ni transparentnosti glede sprejemanja odločitev in dostop do podatkov / dokumentov Komisije je izjemno težak ali celo onemogočen.

Če pogledate zadnji dve krizi (Covid in energetska kriza s sankcijami proti Rusiji), ki ju je zaznamovala popolna netransparentnost in sumljive odločitve s strani Komisije, je težko se ne strinjati z odhajajočo ombudsmanko.

The EU ombudsman described a powerful unelected and untransparent culture at the top of the European Commission, laying the blame squarely at the feet of its president, Ursula von der Leyen.  

Emily O’Reilly, who’s served as the EU’s accountability and transparency watchdog for more than a decade, told POLITICO’s EU Confidential podcast that the Commission’s opacity has got worse over time.

O’Reilly, who leaves the post in February, said that over her 11-year tenure she didn’t once meet von der Leyen, and was “never at ease” with the “powerful consiglieri” who sit in the Commission president’s cabinet. “Consiglieri” is typically used in English as a term for advisers of a mafia boss.

They are “intelligent people — but they’re not elected,” she added.

“The culture always comes from the top,” O’Reilly said, referring to a lack of transparency in the EU executive. She added that if information is being “held back for political reasons and that culture comes from the top — then yeah, it probably is the president [von der Leyen] and her cabinet who are setting the culture.”

She called out the Commission’s reticence when it comes to handing over documents, saying the trend is “worrying.”

“You can understand the frustration when we patiently for months go through an access to documents case, we’re quoting [European Court of Justice] law, we’re doing all of this — and they still say no,” she said. “That is frustrating.”

The ombudsman’s role within the EU is to uphold transparency norms and root out possible conflicts of interest, including between industry and the EU institutions. But its judgments are non-binding and at the mercy of those same institutions to implement them.

Vir: Politico