Why transparency is vital in battle for hearts and minds

Date: 09/11/00

As negotiations between the EU institutions continue on proposals for new rules to govern the public's access to documents, UK Minister for Europe Keith Vaz argues that openness is in everyone's best interest

I SPEND a large part of my time travelling the UK talking to people about the European Union, and have been struck by how often I am told that it appears to be remote and distant from people's lives.

The EU seems to many ordinary European citizens to be a secretive and incomprehensible institution. I think I have a responsibility to explain more about what the Union really is. So do other governments.

The EU itself needs to be more open and accountable. That is why I support efforts to increase the transparency of the institutions, including the latest proposals to improve public access to documents.

People have a right to know what is happening in the Union. They have a right to know about environment policy; how their region will benefit from EU structural funds; and what the Union means when it says it is getting tough on organised crime.

Traditionally, much of what goes on inside the EU and its institutions has been hidden away. But things are changing. The UK is amongst those leading the fight to smash through this wall of secrecy, real or imagined. We want the institutions to be open and accountable, and to connect with the citizen.

That is in everyone's interest - the citizens', the member states', the institutions', and the Union's.

Making the EU more open has long been a priority for the UK. It was a central theme of our last two presidencies - in 1992 and 1998. Easy access to documents is obviously crucial to this. Accessible documents make for accountable institutions.

During our most recent presidency, in 1998, we made a further push for increased openness. In the first six months of 1998, we saw the highest turnout ever for Council of Ministers meetings open to the public. We secured agreement, in March of that year, to set up the public register of Council documents, which was an enormous success from the outset. In the first six months of its operation, from January 1999, the register received well over a quarter of a million requests for documents. It clearly responded to a public need for more information about the EU.

More recently, the Treaty of Amsterdam created a new public right of access to Union documents. Although the public is already permitted access to European Commission and Council documents under the code of conduct, this was the first time that the right was set down in the treaty itself.

The Council and the European Parliament are now working to agree rules to govern this access in a new regulation proposed by the Commission, which is due for adoption by May 2001.

The Parliament shares our commitment to openness and has a central role to play in making the EU more transparent and accountable. We stand shoulder to shoulder with them on opening up the workings of the institutions. We welcome in particular the report by rapporteur Michael Cashman, due for discussion at next week's plenary session in Strasbourg.

In these negotiations, the UK is pushing for the easiest possible access to the widest range of documents, whilst providing adequate protection to the most sensitive ones.

There is no doubt that the proposed regulation will improve the current access provisions. For example, it covers all documents held by the three institutions, including those from third parties. This is an enormous stepforward which the UK strongly supports.

The draft regulation also addresses the key issue of partial access. We believe that we should always support maximum openness, and that parts of documents not covered by the exceptions should be released to the public.

The UK also is supporting the efforts of Finnish Green MEP Heidi Hautala to establish this principle in her case against the Council, which she won in the Court of First Instance but against which the Council has appealed.

I think Ms Hautala and the Court of First Instance are both right. The Council should systematically consider whether a document can be released in part. After all, openness is about sharing as much information as we can - so better to release part of a text than not to release it at all. The UK wants to see that basic principle reflected in the new regulation.

The process of getting hold of documents should be as easy and as user-friendly as possible. The present arrangements are cumbersome. We have proposed that an institution be obliged to acknowledge receipt of a request for access in the form of a standard response. A simple letter which includes an outline of the application process, and informs the applicant of what he or she can do if the institutions do not respond within the time limit, would go a long way towards putting the applicant in the picture about the process and their rights.

We would also like to see improvements to the list of exceptions to the rules on access. We recognise that there are specific areas, such as defence and security, anti-terrorism work and policing, which must be adequately protected. But the list of exceptions should be as narrow and precise as possible.

That brings me to the amendments made over the summer to the 1993 Council's decision on public access to documents, and the 1999 decision on the public register of Council documents. These amendments have been criticised heavily in the press and the Netherlands and the European Parliament have applied to the European Court of Justice seeking their annulment.

During the summer, the Council had to solve an urgent problem. As work on the European security and defence policy (ESDP) progressed, it became clear that the Union would start to produce highly-sensitive documents relating to issues such as military capabilities or deployments. Releasing them could endanger the success of future EU military operations and put lives at risk.

The 1993 decision was not drawn up with this kind of text in mind. So in July we had to, quickly, plug this gap, pending the negotiation of a permanent regime under Article 255. I know the option the Council went for - excluding Top Secret, Secret and Confidential ESDP texts from the scope of the decision - has been highly controversial. But it has provided the necessary level of protection.

I must also stress that the UK considers this to be a short-term solution. We can now work out a durable long-term answer to this tricky question, which balances the public's interest in access and protection fairly. It is this answer which will become law next May, replacing the emergency measure we agreed during the summer.

Let us not forget that the regulation will only provide a framework within which the institutions then have to work. The institutions must apply it in an open and transparent way.

In the Council, member states will continue to consider requests for documents. The UK's starting point is always that a document should be released unless there is a sound reason for not doing so. Indeed when the Council last examined this issue, we supported the release of all ten documents under discussion. We deliver, week-in, week-out, on our policy commitments in this area.

The UK's approach on openness is in line with our general approach to the EU. As Prime Minister Tony Blair said in his speech to the Warsaw stock exchange on 6 October: "Our task, with the help of the new democracies about to join the EU, is to shape a responsive European Union - in touch with the people, transparent and easier to understand, strengthened by its nations and regions - a European Union whose vision of peace is matched by its vision of prosperity."

We want an EU that is open and relevant to the man or woman in the street, a Union where anyone can get hold of a document for the price of a postage stamp or the cost of an e-mail.

The EU has nothing to fear from more openness. On the contrary, the Union and its citizens have everything to gain. I urge others, including the Council and Parliament, to join us in building arrangements which are fully transparent, accountable and effective.

Major feature. As negotiations between the EU institutions continue on proposals for new rules to govern the public's access to documents, the UK Minister for Europe argues that openness is in everyone's best interest.