The European Union’s anti-fraud agency, OLAF, has been asked to investigate alleged nepotism and mishandling of harassment claims at a Malta-based asylum agency.
In a complaint sent to the EU’s anti-fraud agency and the European Commission last week, anonymous employees of the European Union Agency for Asylum called for a probe into top management
The Financial Times, which first reported about the complaint, explained how the allegations were levelled against the executive director of the European Asylum Support Office, Nina Gregori. She is facing accusations of misconduct.
Gregori took charge in 2019 after the departure of predecessor José Carreira, who had faced accusations of harassment.
The unnamed whistleblowers sounded the alarm to help restore the agency’s proper functioning, they wrote in the complaint.
In the complaint, the employees alleged that Gregori had set up a complex system of legal structures and controls that give an appearance of compliance and regularity but that, in reality, hide and cover all the agency’s irregularities
Gregori has ensured it is impossible to alert “the management board, the European Commission, the European Parliament and the public”, they claimed.
Allegations against Gregori include appointments that contravened human resources rules, the employees claimed.
In a statement to the Financial Times, Gregori and her senior managers have rejected the allegations.
The EU’s Asylum Agency, which is based in Malta and employs about 2,000 people, offers member states legal, technical and operational assistance.
The agency, which was previously the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) was given a new name at the beginning of this year and a reinforced mandate to help unify the way member states handle asylum claims.
It provides support to member states facing particular pressure due to the migration crisis, offering monitoring and training relating to the implementation of the Common European Asylum System.
The agency is not new to controversy. In 2018, the European anti-fraud agency found “irregularities” at the Malta-based office, recommending that the management board should take disciplinary action against former executive director José Carreira, and several other staff members. Carreira, who denied the allegations, resigned from the agency before the investigation was concluded.
He stepped down amid accusations of bullying and “psychological violence” as well as the Olaf investigation.
Staff at the agency have long complained about their working conditions under Carreira. Times of Malta has reported how agency staff complained in internal e-mails about the “culture of irresponsibility” and “psychological violence” they were subjected to.
Gregori took over from Carreira in 2019.
According to the Financial Times, which saw the complaint, the employees did not allege financial mismanagement or fraud but argued that unjustified salaries were paid out as a result of these wrongful appointments, citing “the fraudulent use of EU budget channelled into irregular salary payments” to dozens of managers.
The complaint also targets a certain Mark Camilleri, who was allegedly the subject of harassment complaints by five staff members in the past three years and who was “supported” by Gregori “in all cases”, the employees alleged.
Gerardo Knouse Ramirez, the head of the agency’s internal controls, also stands accused by the complainants of covering up mismanagement.
Camilleri and Knouse Ramirez both denied all the accusations included in the complaint, the EUAA said.
Olaf, the EU anti-fraud unit, confirmed to the FT that it had received the complaint and was evaluating its “potential investigative interest according to standard procedures”.
A probe would be opened if the watchdog decides it has the competence to act and if there is “sufficient suspicion of serious misconduct” involving either fraud, corruption or illegal activity, it said.