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Learning How to Complain
 On May 6th the European Ombudsman, Mr P. Nikiforos Diamandouros came from Strasbourg to a joint meeting of the Portuguese Chamber, The Belgian Luxembourg Chamber and the Swiss Chamber of Commerce. The subject was “How Companies Can Complain to the European Ombudsman”. The European Ombudman’s, which may not be well known in countries with a low complaint culture, is there to help with complaints against the actions and more often the non-actions of institutions of the European Union itself. If you have not been paid by an office or agency, been treated unfairly or have other problems, the European Ombudsman can act for you without cost as an alternative to taking the matter through the courts.
Professor Diamandouros has been in this post since April 2003. He reported the UK has the lowest complaint ratio in the EU. Portugal was 11th with 2.8% of the complaints received in 2007 from 2.1% of the EU population.
In 2007 95.2% of the complaints came from individual citizens, and 4.8% from companies. The amounts paid to companies was often quite substantial
25.7% of complaints were found not to have maladministration and only 1.3 % had a “friendly solution”. Others were settled with various critical reports or other action.
Nearly two thirds of the complaints were against the European Commission itself and came from a mix of lack of transparency or refusal of information , unfairness and abuse of power as well as other causes.
If you feel you need to complain the you need to know that complaints have to be submitted in writing and in the first instance need not be complex long documents. Complaints should be sent by Fax to +33 3 88 17 90 62, by email to eo@ombudsman.europa.eu or by mail to The European Ombudsman, 1, av du Prés Robert Schumann, CS30403, F-67001 Strasbourg, Cedex, France.
For complaints about problems between EU states, the Ombudsman cannot help. There is however a different organisation “Solvit”, which operates in each country which may be able to help.
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