Thursday, 21 January 2010
Nikiforos Diamanduros- European Ombudsman until 2014
The European Parliament re-elected Mr. Nikiforos Diamanduros from Greece for European Ombudsman until 2014, who holds this position since 2003. Mr. Nikiforos Diamanduros was supported by 340 MEP on yesterday’s secret voting. Other two nominees for this position were Mr. Pierre-Yves Monette (BE) who was supported by 289 votes and Vittorio Bottoli (IT) with 19 votes.
Mr Diamandouros' priorities for his mandate are to ensure that EU delivers the benefits for citizens promised by the Lisbon Treaty, strengthen constructive dialogue with EU institutions and bodies and improve service to citizens, by using resources more efficiently. He also plans to step up co-operation with national and regional ombudsmen and communicate more effectively with citizens.
The role of the Ombudsman, established in 1995, is to investigate cases of maladministration by the EU institutions, including lack of transparency and refusal to provide information or documents.