Selection procedure of Agency's Scientific Committee - FRA

Opinion of 29 April 2008 on a notification for prior checking on the selection procedure of members of the Agency's Scientific Committee (Joint cases 2008-179 and 2008-202)
In accordance with Regulation (EC) 168/2007 establishing the FRA, the Management Board of the Agency shall appoint a Scientific Committee after consultation of the competent Committee at the European Parliament. The FRA has therefore established a selection procedure for the selection of candidates for membership of the Scientific Committee and has submitted it to the EDPS for prior checking during the course of the procedure. Indeed, the shortlist of candidates has been established by the bodies involved in the selection procedure at the FRA (pre-selection panel, Executive Board, and Management Board) and the list of candidates is about to be communicated to the EP LIBE Committee.

The LIBE Committee requests that the Management Board provides the following information to the members of the Committee: a copy of the open call for tender and information on how the call was disseminated; a description of the selection criteria used during the procedure with justification of the selection methodology chosen; the number of applications received, broken down according to a Member State and gender, with information on how many of the applicants were not eligible to apply and a short list of candidates with their applications and CVs.

The LIBE Committee will discuss applications in a LIBE Committee session open to the public. It will then give its opinion about the candidates after receiving the above information by expressing its order of preference in a secret ballot. This opinion will be communicated to the FRA Management Board allowing it to nominate members of the Scientific Committee.

The LIBE Committee intends to make the names of the short listed candidates, their CVs and the results of the vote public based on the consent of the candidates. Non-consent on the part of any of the candidates will lead to the non publication on their data.

The EDPS adopted an opinion on this selection procedure and considered that although it was regrettable that the Notification from the FRA was submitted when the processing was well underway, all recommendations made by the EDPS, should be fully taken into account and the remedies should be put into practice. These recommendations where the following:
- that the FRA clarifies the periods for conservation of personal data; - that the FRA sets up procedures to ensure the right of access to candidates' personal data;
- that the FRA provides information to all the candidates in a privacy notice available on the FRA website and also to short listed candidates before communicating the data to the LIBE Committee;
- that the information on the processing of personal data remains available on the FRA website throughout the procedure in case applicants want to refer back to it;
- that the EP provides certain information on the processing of personal data to candidates when inviting them to attend the hearing before the LIBE Committee.