Press Release: Ombudsman: Late payment by Commission still a serious problem

The European Ombudsman, P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, expressed his concern about the problems encountered by the European Commission in paying its bills on time. This followed his latest investigation into the timeliness of the Commission’s payments to citizens, companies, universities, NGOs, and other organisations involved in EU-funded projects and contracts. In 2007, delays occurred in more than one out of five cases and the average delay amounted to 48 days.

The Ombudsman commended the Commission for the measures already taken to reduce payment delays. He called on it, however, to make further improvements to its payment policy as quickly as possible, especially regarding more vulnerable contractors, such as individual citizens and small- and medium-sized companies and organisations. The Ombudsman also announced that he would carry out a new investigation in early 2009 when figures for the Commission's performance in 2008 become available.