BRUSSELS — The European Parliament is investigating damaging allegations made about management and recruiting processes at the agency overseeing the EU’s asylum work.
Following a confidential investigation into the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA) by the bloc’s anti-fraud watchdog, OLAF, the European Parliament will vote on Wednesday to delay approval of EUAA’s 2023 financial accounts to give lawmakers time to look into the allegations.
“We cannot yet be sure that the agency’s measures and conclusions are appropriate,” said Greens MEP Erik Marquardt, who is leading the Parliament’s audit of EUAA finances.
In response to OLAF’s findings, the EUAA supervisory board issued a formal warning to its executive director, Nina Gregori, urging her to “ensure more efficient and transparent procedures” in hiring and human resources, according to board chair Evelina Gudzinskaitė.
But the board opted not to take disciplinary action, prompting lawmakers to seek to clarify the facts in the Parliament.
“We will assess with the EUAA, its management board and OLAF to find out how the problems arose and whether appropriate measures have been taken,” Marquardt added.
Citing “concerning” findings from the OLAF report that threaten the “stability, governance, and reputation” of the agency under Gregori, lawmakers in the budgetary control committee voted in April to freeze signing off on the accounts and announced the opening of an investigation. Wednesday’s vote is to ratify that decision.
Gregori denies wrongdoing. “The alleged facts raised in the OLAF report have not been found established … no misconduct was found, and I did not receive any disciplinary penalty,” she said in a written statement to POLITICO.
Show of unity
The quarrel comes at the worst possible time, with the EU desperate to show it can deliver on migration, which remains a top concern for voters across Europe. It’s also tricky for the European Commission as the bloc starts to negotiate a new deportations regulation and continues to implement an asylum and migration law that took nearly 10 years to pass.
The OLAF probe was launched in late 2022 after anonymous complaints from EUAA staff who raised the alarm over what they saw as irregularities in personnel decisions.
Since being shared with lawmakers, the OLAF findings have triggered a rare show of unity in the divided Parliament.
On April 8, the legislature’s budgetary control committee voted unanimously to delay approval of the EUAA’s 2023 accounts and reopened scrutiny of the agency’s leadership, in a clear rebuke of how the agency’s supervisory board handled the OLAF findings.
“The director has some serious explaining to do,” said Swedish MEP Jonas Sjöstedt, a member of the budgetary control committee. “That will decide her future in the position.”
While the delay in the adoption of the accounts carries no legal weight, it conveys a political warning.
Amid rising public scrutiny of migration policies, lawmakers are eager to signal they won’t let governance failures slide.
The Parliament has previously used such measures to force resignations at the EU’s migration agencies — both within the EUAA itself and at border agency Frontex.
Gregori’s predecessor, José Carreira, resigned in 2018 after an OLAF probe led lawmakers to postpone account approval. Similar pressure from the Parliament led the head of Frontex to step down in 2022.
The post Parliament probes EU asylum agency amid allegations of mismanagement appeared first on Politico.
