European Ombudsman. Annual report 1997

Adopting the report by Mr Edward Newman (PSE, UK) on the Annual Report on the activities of the European Ombudsman in 1997, Parliament welcomes the fact that the Ombudsman has defined the term 'maladministration', as it has requested. It also welcomes the Ombudsman's positive response to the initiative for a code of good administrative behaviour for the European Institutions and bodies and stresses that this code must be identical for all the Institutions. It calls for broader and deeper cooperation between the European Ombudsman and Parliament's Committee on Petitions and repeats its call for sufficient resources, including budgetary resources, to be allocated. It calls on the Ombudsman and all the European institutions to enhance the awareness of the Union's citizens of their right to petition and to send complaints to the Ombudsman and suggests improving and rapidly extending the existing electronic data processing system. In particular it calls for an Internet service to be set up, making this data available to EU citizens. �