The European Ombudsman, P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, has helped settle a dispute between the European Commission and the NGO Migration Policy Group (MPG) concerning payment for an EU project launched as part of the “European Migration Dialogue”.
The case refers to a EU-funded project which was undertaken by the NGO Migration Policy Group (MPG) in 2004 – 2005 and which they reported on in 2006. MPG had delivered supporting documents for staff costs after the given deadline. However they justified the delay by stating the difficulties they experienced in obtaining the relevant documents from the more than 20 partner NGOs on the project.
After an audit of the project, the Commission issued a recovery order for more than EUR 130 000 because of the delay in receiving the documents. The Commission eventually accepted a “friendly solution” to the issue and refunded EUR 70 000 to the NGO after the European Ombudsman asked them to justify why its conclusions from the audit report could not have been modified after it received the missing documents.