Openness and transparency in the EU Institutions

An important feature of the Treaty on European Union is its emphasis on opening up the work of the Union to the public. The Commission has already taken a number of measures to generate more openness in Community affairs via public access to internal Commission documents, contacts and consultation with interest groups on the basis of Green Papers and in developing its information policy towards the general public.

In the run-up to the revision of the Treaty and the Intergovernmental Conference, the Commission and the Permanent Representation of Sweden to the European Union organized a joint seminar on 'Openness and Transparency in the European Union' on 22 November 1995 in Brussels. As openness, no doubt, will be one of the issues during the IGC negotiations, this report recounts the discussions, thus giving an account of the state of play on openness with and within the European institutions.