Reports of favoritism and mismanagement at the EU asylum agency drew a reprimand and a set of recommendations from the European Parliament’s Budgetary Control Committee on Wednesday.

According to a damning confidential summary from the EU’s OLAF anti-fraud office, senior management at the asylum agency allegedly bypassed staff regulations to promote a “friendly circle” into senior positions, POLITICO revealed in May.

In response, the Parliament froze approval of the agency’s books and launched an investigation into the matter.

The asylum agency coordinates the implementation of the EU’s migration policy among member countries, including asylum applications and deportations.

Members of the European Parliament who scrutinized the agency’s 2023 accounts wrote that the legislature “strongly deplores the weaknesses in the management of conflicts of interest within the agency.”

The approval of the accounts is non-binding but allows the Parliament to issue recommendations to EU bodies on how to handle their budgets.

Following an exchange with the agency’s executive director, Nina Gregori, lawmakers on the Committee on Budgetary Control voted to greenlight the accounts, albeit with a formal reprimand and demands for changes to the agency’s management. The accounts still need to be ratified in the plenary in October.

Lawmakers recommended that the agency establish an independent internal ethics body, strengthen its whistle-blowing protection rules, and publish an anonymized version of the OLAF report.

The Parliament also instructed the agency to establish an exit interview program to identify why there is such high turnover among staff, and to report back to lawmakers on the results during the 2024 accounts discharge procedure.

MEPs vowed to continue their close scrutiny of the agency, especially of its implementation of the recommendations of its supervisory board. Despite the findings of the OLAF report, the board decided not to launch disciplinary procedures against top management and opted for structural reforms within the agency.

Green MEP Erik Marquardt, the lead negotiator on the file, did not reply to a request for comment.