Dear European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights,

Under the right of access to documents in the EU treaties, as developed in Regulation 1049/2001, I am requesting documents which contain the following information:

List of contracts, purchase orders, grants, concluded by FRA with Open University London, UK (contractual sums, contractual duration, dates of entering into force and dates of expiry, list of ongoing contracts).

Yours faithfully,

Kurt Weiss

Dear EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA),

Under the right of access to documents in the EU treaties, as developed in Regulation 1049/2001, I am requesting documents which contain the following information:

- FRA Training Policy and Internal Rules for training provided to FRA employees.

Yours sincerely,

Kurt Weiss

Dear EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA),

Additionally to my previous request, I would like to ask access to all documents reflecting payments and/or reimbursements to FRA staff for their University studies at Open University London UK and any other Universities in Europe (please clarify if under EUMC mandate and FRA mandate there were and there are cases when FRA paid and pays for University Studies of its staff in form of Training programmes).
As this request is covered by some restrictions of Regulation (privacy), please make anonymous the names of the students / FRA Staff in the documents I request access. I would like to know the number of FRA students who benefited of such reimbursements, the period of studies, the yearly amounts paid by FRA to its staff-students in order to allow FRA staff-students to pay their studies at Open University London UK or at other universities in Europe, the total amount per students, per year, grand total paid from general budget, List of ongoing reimbursement-claim.
I would like to access information if these amounts are recoverable after finalization studies?
Please attach or indicate the internet link for the legal basis for such reimbursements of University Studies of FRA employees in form of Training programs.

Yours sincerely,

Kurt Weiss

Dear EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA),

Thank you for your reply and the 7 documents disclosed to the public domain.
I would like further to enquire on the following issues:

1. Could you please indicate how many current or past FRA staff cumulating the quality of Students at Open University UK, London and University of London / London School of Economics, mentioned by FRA here in this payments-document http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/701/r... were previously employees of this Agency mentioned by OLAF in its Report accessible from here http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/453/r... at pages 4 to 7, Title “Recruitment Issues”.

2. As you can see the Agency`s name was deleted by OLAF due to the privacy issues. I appealed against that deletion because I believe that the name of an agency is not subject of any exceptions provided by Regulation 1049/2001. The OLAF reply is pending to delivery next days.

Nevertheless, already at this stage I would like to ask you if you could confirm the name of that Agency, whose name was deleted by OLAF. Upon a basic research undertaken, it was found that the only EU Agency which announced its closure in 2005, as mentioned by OLAF in its report, was EU Agency for Reconstruction Thessaloniki, Greece.

Could you please confirm or infirm if any of the students to whom FRA reimbursed and reimburses 50% of their university studies, master studies and PhD studies were previously employed at EU Agency for Reconstruction Thessaloniki, Greece (EAR)? Could you also confirm if a part of the leadership of FRA http://fra.europa.eu/en/about-fra/struct... was employed at the same agency, i.e. EAR? Would be possible in this context to grant access to the CV of the Head of Administration, which is not uploaded in FRA website?

3. There is a staff-student mentioned in FRA document http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/701/r... who follows University of London / London School of Economics. Could you specify the working area at FRA of that staff-student and also of the other students? As a taxpayer who contributes to their individual studies I would like to have access to this information.

4. Would be possible to grant me access to Recommendations, opinions or any other relevant documents containing the position of FRA Staff Committee on FRA Training policy and FRA “Study Support Scheme” and related reimbursements.

5. Finally I would like to request access to any documents related on how FRA ensures the equal treatment in the frame of promotion exercise, when in the Promotion list appears STAFF –STUDENTS like the ones mentioned here http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/701/r... and REGULAR STAFF (i.e. staff having their university, master of PhD studies completed at the date of recruitment).

Finally I would appreciate to have FRA opinion on these questions:
a) Do you consider legal and in line with EU Legislation to assimilate training with individual university, master and Phd studies? If yes, would be possible to indicate the references of that legislation?
b) Do you consider legal to pay such individual studies from Public Budget? Which are the specific provisions for such payments?
c) Do you consider fair and equal that some of FRA staff have this opportunity to be paid from EU Public budget (so from taxpayers money) for their university, master and PhdD studies and some of staff do not have this opportunity, because they do not need such study payments as they already completed all their studies and were employed at FRA also based on their educational background completed.

I base the legitimacy of my questions on the findings made by OLAF in its report. As you can see, there were found several shortcomings and irregularities, including poor management.
OLAF already found that the “Reimbursement of school fees” was made irregularly (see page 6 of OLAF Report http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/453/r...) by misusing an Annex of Staff Regulation applicable to third countries in order to obtain favorable educational allowances. Austria where FRA has its HQ is not a third country and therefore there was no justification to apply Annex X to FRA staff in order to facilitate them to obtain monetary gains. Would be possible to know if FRA recovered the unjustified amounts paid to some of FRA staff?

Having regard to the above, I am legitimately concerned that there could be possible a recurrence of irregular facts and the current policy of FRA of reimbursing individual university studies, master studies and PhD studies from the EU public budget could be not in line with applicable rules and the EU funds could be misappropriated for individual interest of some staff (either for “Reimbursement of school fees” as found by OLAF or for “Reimbursement of Individual university studies” from FRA Training programs and related budgetary lines).
Thank you very much in advance for your replies.

Yours sincerely,

Kurt Weiss