* Admissibility date reflects the date the case was officially registered. All other dates pertain to the date in which a stage was completed.
Case Description
Complaint
On 13 February 2012 an individual lodged a complaint with the EIB Complaints Mechanism (EIB-CM) concerning the expropriation procedure of his land as a result of the construction of the Sfax-Gabès Motorway in Tunisia. The complainant alleged that the expropriation procedure, conducted in relation to the Sfax-Gabès Motorway project, co-financed by the EIB, was carried on in an improper manner in that the national law providing for a fair and prior compensation for the expropriated property (article 2 of the Tunisian Law on expropriation as amended in 2003) had not been respected.
More precisely, the complainant alleged that:
- He did not receive any compensation offer for the future expropriation of his land;
- He was unable to find an interlocutor at the concerned institutions to whom he could present his case;
- He was threatened by STA’s employees.
EIB-CM Action
As part of its inquiry, the EIB-CM reviewed the documentation gathered and engaged with the concerned parties to the dispute. Nonetheless, in order to better evaluate and clarify the raised issues, a series of conference calls, interviews and meetings with the concerned parties were organised.
Given the limits of the applicable legal framework on which the EIB's activity is based, the main purpose of the EIB-CM's intervention was, more precisely, to assess the situation, to verify if any act of maladministration had been committed by the EIB as well as to establish possible remedies and more generally, to find a possible compromise between the complainant and the promoter in order to settle the issue and to speed-up the operations of the project in the common interest of all the parties involved.
Conclusion
The EIB-CM has concluded that there was no maladministration of the EIB in respect of the allegations of the complainant. Bearing in mind that the EIB-CM has used all its powers to bring the parties to a conciliatory position and that the case is currently being reviewed by the national courts, no further action is required from the EIB under the current complaint.