EU ombudsman attacks Commission: no documentation on preparatory acts to von der Leyen, Meloni, and Rutte meeting with Tunisian President

Brussels – There is no piece of paper to show that the meeting was properly prepared or that there was a discussion “at least” between the Commission, Italy, and the Netherlands. In short, something that seems to have been done “as a venture” without verifying conditions and consequences.

This was the now famous meeting with Tunisian President Kais Saied on June 11, 2023, held in Tunis by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the prime ministers of Italy and the Netherlands, Giorgia Meloni and Mark Rutte (now NATO Secretary General), just before the EU and Tunisia signed (on the 17th of that month) a Memorandum of Understanding on many issues, primarily migration, economic development, trade and green energy.

For the European Ombudsman, this is a case of “maladministration” on the part of the Commission, which has been unable to produce documents relating to exchanges of information with member states or even on internal exchanges that took place in the EU Executive to prepare for the meeting.

At first, the Commission was unable to produce any documents to meet the Ombudsman’s requests, but later, it found only 13, including some internal notes. The shortage of items surprised the Ombudsman because a meeting at this high level would necessarily have required preliminary exchanges between different Commission departments and with member states. At the very least, there should have been exchanges with Italy and the Netherlands. Yet none of the 13 documents identified by the Commission cover these types of exchanges before the June meeting. Moreover, the Commission “did not provide reasonable explanations for the absence of these additional documents.”

The Ombudsman also complained that the Commission took nearly 12 months to review its initial decision, despite the fact that the EU Regulation on Access to Documents provides a maximum of 30 working days for such reviews.