Developments in European information issues: Networks and relays – Services – Products, July 2003

Under Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 which established the registers of documents of the Council, the European Parliament and the Commission, these three institutions requested the other institutions to set out rules governing public access to their documents on the same basis. Committee of the Regions Decision No 64/2003 of 11 February 2003, published on the Official Journal L 160 28.6.2003, sets out to establish its own register. The decision was due to take effect from 1st June 2003 but the appearance of the register has been delayed by the work undertaken on drawing up a list of all categories of documents which will be accessible via the register. A more recent decision No 128/2003 of 17 June 2003, which is not yet published in the Official Journal, identifies the documents which will be accessible via the electronic document register. It is now expected that the register will be available in the near future on the Committee's website at http://www.cor.eu.int/, though in the meantime Committee of the Regions staff are happy to assist with requests for access as a matter of course. Discussions have recently begun to look at how the existing three registers can be made to work together more effectively with the ultimate aim of producing a single register. This adds another element to the equation.

Observers in the EP

From 1st May 2004 ten new countries join the EU. Subsequent to the signature of the Accession Treaty in Athens on 16 April 2003, the President of the European Parliament invited each acceding country to appoint members of their own parliaments as observers to the European Parliament. The arrangement will last only for the length of the current parliamentary term as the accession of the new states is timed immediately to precede the parliamentary elections of June 2004. The number of observers for each country matches the number of members allocated by the Treaty and reflects the political complexion of that state. Observers, totalling 162 in all, will be attached to a political group in the European Parliament and will take part in its work. In plenary sessions observers are not allowed to speak or vote, but they may be invited to contribute, though not vote, in committee work. Details of the numbers of members allocated per country can be found on the Parliament website at http://www.europarl.eu.int/observers/information_en.htm. Full information about each appointed observer can be found in a database which mirrors the database of Members of the EP. It can be viewed by political group and country or in alphabetical order. Alternatively it can be searched by name, political group, committee or country. Visit http://www.europarl.eu.int/observateurs/obsbygpc.jsp?lng=en for full details.