EU asylum agency bosses favored ‘friendly circle’ for promotions, watchdog finds

BRUSSELS — Senior management at the EU’s asylum agency bypassed staff regulations to promote a “friendly circle” into senior positions, a confidential investigation by the EU’s anti-fraud watchdog OLAF found.

OLAF launched its investigation in late 2022 after anonymous complaints from staff raised alarm about irregularities in personnel decisions.

The probe, which concluded this year and was shared with MEPs in March, says senior leadership bypassed procedures to appoint friends in managerial positions. It also says the agency’s leadership restructured the legal, procurement and facility departments not in response to organizational needs, but to accommodate the career ambitions of certain individuals.

The report on EU Asylum Agency (EUAA) tasked with implementing the bloc’s asylum law comes at a sensitive time for the EU. As Europe’s far-right forces grow, Brussels is at pains to present a tough front on migration, and faces a mammoth task in enforcing its migration pact and a new right-leaning deportation bill in the works.

EUAA’s executive director, Nina Gregori, has denied any 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, pointing out the agency’s management board tasked with her supervision decided not to launch disciplinary procedures after assessing the case.

The chair of the EUAA management board, Evelina Gudzinskaitė, told POLITICO that “it is important to see the matters addressed by the OLAF report in the context of the Agency’s growth,” arguing that the EUAA quickly needed to fill in vacancies. The board sent Gregori a set of recommendations to improve recruitment processes, she added.

The EUAA said the case was closed, but that it would now look to strengthen its human resources’ procedures.

The European Parliament has opened its own probe into the matter and has delayed approval of the agency’s 2023 accounts.

The findings

The details of the OLAF findings were confirmed to POLITICO by two officials familiar with the probe. They were granted anonymity to discuss the confidential investigation. OLAF declined to comment.

Findings include abuse of temporary appointments and promotions of multiple people within leadership figures’ “friendly circle” to mid-management roles between 2019 and 2023. This was contrary to what would be beneficial for the agency and is in breach of EU staff regulations, the OLAF investigators found, according to the same two officials.

OLAF alleges that recruitment decisions were also steered by personal ties — including appointing friends as chairs of hiring panels, canceling formal selection processes, and ignoring input from official selection committees. The EU’s watchdog also said those decisions were taken to the detriment of the good governance and reputation of the agency, the people with knowledge of the investigation said.

Those favored are described in the report as being “on friendly terms — visiting each other, having coffees, lunches,” with some having known each other before joining the agency, the same people familiar with the investigation said. 

Such hiring practices would be in breach of the EU’s Staff Regulations since its leadership is accused of bypassing established procedures and ignored internal recommendations, OLAF investigators pointed out. 

Gregori claimed her “strategic decision, as a manager, not to prioritize recruitment procedures” to fill in the vacancies, instead using temporary staff, was legal and related to “exceptional circumstances.” She pointed to urgent hiring needs during the Covid-19 pandemic, during which “recruitment procedures were stopped completely,” and an increase of workload that justified such choices. 

As examples of the workload she faced, Gregori referred to the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the stand-off at the Belarus border between Polish border agents and migrants.

Gregori said she did not play any role in these individuals’ recruitment, who she said were hired before she became executive director in 2019. 

“All [allegations] in respect of ‘close friendly-circle’ were based on pure hearsay or unfounded allegations of unidentified witnesses without further explanation or [proof],” she added.

In a written statement, Gregori also explained she presented her version of the facts set out in OLAF findings to the EUAA’s supervisory board, who had to weigh whether it should follow the watchdog’s conclusions. OLAF said it would not seek judicial proceedings.

After those exchanges, the EUAA’s supervisory board didn’t call for disciplinary proceedings. But it did set forth recommendations and a warning to the executive director “to take measures to ensure more efficient and transparent procedures and more broadly to strengthen the overall HR administration in the Agency,” board chair Gudzinskaitė told POLITICO.

Parliament reopens probe

Still, lawmakers believe Gregori has “some explaining to do,” according to Swedish MEP Jonas Sjöstedt, a member of the budgetary control committee. “That will decide her future in the position.”

Citing “worrying” conclusions that threaten the “stability, governance, and reputation” of the agency, European Parliament lawmakers voted on May 7 to freeze signing off on the accounts of the agency, enabling the reopening of a probe over supposed governance failures and disputed appointments. 

While the delay in the adoption of the accounts carries no legal weight, it conveys a warning and can be used to put political pressure on the board, just as public scrutiny of the EU’s migration policy implementation rises.