ATHENS, March 14, 2025 — On February 21, 2025, the European Ombudsman issued a decision following its inquiry into the European Commission’s administration of Greece’s EU-funded border operations (Case 1418/2023/VS). The Ombudsman’s inquiry was opened on November 7, 2024 following a joint complaint by de:border // migration justice collective, Legal Centre Lesvos, HIAS Greece, Equal Rights Beyond Borders, and Mobile Info Team, with the support of several prominent investigative and research organizations, including Border Violence Monitoring Network, Forensic Architecture, Lighthouse Reports, and Lena Karamanidou.
The Ombudsman makes extensive findings concerning various shortcomings in the Commission’s (in)actions and calls on the European Commission to implement four significant “suggestions for improvement,” including:
- Issue guidelines for assessing compliance with fundamental rights in EU-funded border operations, taking into account independent sources of information and setting clear criteria for suspending or withholding funds where violations occur.
- Reassess Greece’s compliance with the Charter HEC, given credible ongoing complaints and reports about systemic breaches of EU and fundamental rights abuses.
- Increase the Commission’s transparency, including the publication of compliance assessments and relevant complaints.
- Ensure the meaningful participation of civil society in monitoring and reviewing fundamental rights compliance in the use of EU funds.
While these proposals are welcomed, they largely reiterate the Commission’s existing legal obligations, raising serious concerns about the Ombudsman’s ability to ensure accountability despite being the only body that can receive civil society complaints. Despite its critical findings and concrete recommendations, the Ombudsman’s decision fails to recognize the Commission’s ongoing breaches of its obligations under EU law resulting from its continued funding of Greece’s border operations and their serious and systemic breaches of EU law and fundamental rights.
By closing its inquiry — despite clear evidence of the Commission’s non-compliance with EU law —the Ombudsman is effectively evading a finding of maladministration, missing a critical opportunity to hold the EU executive body to account for enabling fundamental rights abuses at Europe’s borders and to bring about systemic change.
The Ombudsman has asked the Commission to respond to its recommendations and make clear its intentions and plans for their implementation by the end of May 2025. We call on the Commission to act promptly, effectively and in good faith to implement the Ombudsman’s recommendations. We will continue to monitor the Commission and Greece’s responses and actions and consider the likely need for further complaints.
Our analysis of the Ombudsman’s decision and its implications is available here:
Contacts:
- Valentina Azarova and Noemi Magugliani, de:border // migration justice collective, azarova@debordercollective.org and n.magugliani@debordercollective.org
- Marion Bouchetel, Legal Centre Lesvos, marion@legalcentrelesvos.org
- Elli Kriona Saranti, HIAS Greece, kriona@hias.org
