Lifting the veil

Date: 03/04/1997

THE EU's Ombudsman Jacob Söderman has vowed to continue his campaign for greater openness in the Union's institutions, despite the blow dealt to his cause by EU foreign ministers last month.

The current battle centres on whether the Ombudsman's remit extends to adjudicating in cases concerning public access to Council of Ministers' documents on justice and home affairs issues. The Council insists that as these are dealt with on an intergovernmental basis, it does not. But Söderman insists that he does have the power to act.

The fact that the foreign ministers of six countries agreed with him, but were outvoted by the rest, is a sign of the confusion which still surrounds this issue and amply demonstrates the need for greater clarity in the rules on transparency and openness.

EU leaders constantly stress that the Union should move closer to its citizens and acknowledge the need to lift the veil of secrecy which surrounds so much of its work. Progress has been made, driven by the entry into the EU of Nordic countries with a strong tradition of openness, but there now appears to be a broad consensus among member states that more needs to be done.

The Irish EU presidency acknowledged this in the draft treaty text it presented to the Dublin summit last December, declaring that decisions should be taken “as openly as possible and as closely as possible to the citizen”. But the draft text said that the public's right of access to EU documents should be “subject to conditions” to be laid down by each of the institutions under their own rules of procedure.

This does not go far enough. If the institutions are left to attach their own conditions to the implementation of any new treaty article on openness, they will inevitably be tempted to attach more caveats than are strictly necessary. It would be far better to lay down clear guidelines in the treaty so that everyone plays by the same rules in future. That way the public would know precisely what rights they have and how to exercise them - a crucial element in any attempt to achieve true openness.