European Ombudsman

• Ombudswoman encourages Commission to fulfil AI Act objectives for energy consumption data

  Upon closing an inquiry related to general purpose AI models and energy consumption, European Ombudswoman Teresa Anjinho encouraged the European Commission to continue to improve technical solutions to better enable AI providers to estimate their models’ energy use and meet the objectives set out in the EU’s AI Act.

  The Ombudswoman’s inquiry followed a complaint from a Member of the European Parliament who had raised concerns about possible discrepancies regarding energy consumption between the AI Act and guidelines meant to assist its implementation for general purpose AI models – the Code of Practice.

  In her findings, the Ombudswoman acknowledged that the Code of Practice is only a temporary measure for ensuring compliance with the AI Act. She stressed that the Commission has an obligation to regularly monitor and evaluate how the Code is performing and to encourage its review and adaptation if necessary. The Code may ultimately be replaced with targeted instruments

• How the European Commission handled a request for information concerning its use and public promotion of a specific social media platform

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• Decision on how the European Commission assessed energy consumption provisions of the Code of Practice related to the AI Act (case 3162/2025/MIK)

  The complainant, a Member of the European Parliament, raised concerns about what he believed was a discrepancy between the AI Act and the Code of Practice for general purpose AI (GPAI). The European Commission recently confirmed that the Code, developed by stakeholders, is an ‘adequate’ voluntary tool for GPAI providers to demonstrate compliance with the AI Act. However, the complainant argued that the Code exempts GPAI providers from their duty under the AI Act to document or at least estimate the energy consumption of their models during their training and testing.

  The Ombudsman inquired into this issue and found the Commission reasonably explained how its AI Office intends to assess the energy consumption of GPAI where the providers lack certain information necessary to make the estimation. Thus, the Commission provided the necessary assurances that it will fulfil the underlying objective of the AI Act in this regard. In this context, the Ombudsman noted that the Code is i

• Decision on the refusal by the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust) to give public access to documents concerning the extraction of information from communication devices of migrants (case 842/2025/AML)

  The case concerned the refusal of the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust) to give public access to seven documents concerning the extraction of information from communication devices of migrants. In refusing public access to parts of the documents, Eurojust relied on two exceptions set out in the EU legislation on public access to documents, that is, the need to protect the public interest as regards public security, and the need to protect personal data.

  Based on the inspection of the documents at issue, the Ombudsman was not convinced by Eurojust’s arguments that wider disclosure of the documents would undermine the protection of the public interest as regards public security. The Ombudsman made a proposal for a solution, in which she asked Eurojust to reconsider its position on the request, with a view to giving wider public access to the documents at issue. She invited Eurojust, in doing so, to focus on three of the documents concerned, with

• Report on the meeting of the European Ombudsman inquiry team with representatives of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (FRONTEX) on its refusal to give public access to documents concerning the return of migrants

  Date: Wednesday, 25 June 2025

  Remote (webex)

  Present

  Frontex

  Two representatives from the Public Access to Documents Team

  Three representatives from Inspection and Control Office

  Six representatives from Return Division

  Procurement Officer

  The European Ombudsman

  Jennifer King, Legal Expert

  Tereza Mandjukova, Inquiries Officer

  Paulien Van de Velde-Van Rumst, Inquiries Officer

  Nika Bobek, Inquiries Trainee

  Background

  The case is about how Frontex dealt with a request for public access to documents concerning Joint Return Operations (JROs) and National Return Operations (NROs) coordinated by Frontex for the period 1 July 2024 to 31 December 2024.

  Purpose of the meeting

  The purpose of the meeting was for the Ombudsman inquiry team to obtain a better understanding of how Frontex dealt with the complainant’s request, in particular, how it identified the documents falli