It didn’t take long for Teresa Anjinho to realise the challenges of being the voice of the public at the office of the EU Ombudsman — or ‘ombudswoman’ as she prefers to call herself. After three months in office, the Portuguese legal expert has already faced the realities of leading an institution with soft power, while trying to push for greater transparency within the EU’s complex and often opaque bureaucracy.
Given that most of the complaints arriving at her office are about access to documents (42 percent of complaints in 2024 were about transparency and accountability), Anjinho has pledged to make transparency a top priority.
“I will continue to put transparency as a priority in my actions,” the 50-year-old legal expert told EUobserver from her Brussels office, vowing to be “not only reactive, but also proactive” public official.
Her first own initiative investigation, which she hopes to wrap up by early 2026, will focus on the phenomenon of revolving doors, which occurs when top EU officials move into private sector roles.
In former probes related to former officials from the European Banking Authority and the European Defence Agency, the former ombudsman found that both career moves should have been temporarily forbidden.
“It’s an integrity issue and a very important one, because you have to always be able to distinguish between the ones that serve the public interest and the ones that serve, of course, private interests,” Anjinho said.
On the issue, the legal expert is clear: the public has a right to know where high-ranking officials go next — which is not the case at the moment.
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Elena Sánchez Nicolás