Row over access to EU documents hots up

Date: 29/06/2000

By Simon Taylor

EU Citizens should be given wide-ranging rights to information about how decisions are taken by the Union's institutions and not just access to individual pieces of paper, according to MEPs.

British Labour member Michael Cashman, who is drafting up the European Parliament's opinion on the Commission proposals for new rules to govern the release of sensitive internal papers, argues that the "right to access cannot be disassociated from the right to information on the institutions' activities".

Cashman says experience in Union member states and 30 years of the US freedom of information act has shown that institutions have a duty to present information about their activities and decision-making procedures "in a clear and neutral manner".

In addition, he argues, the right of access must be "easily enforceable within the institutions and the member states" and should be "effectively relied on in the courts".

Echoing criticisms of Commission President Romano Prodi's proposals made by EU Ombudsman Jacob Söderman, who accused the institution of drawing up a list of exemptions which was "without precedent in the modern world", Cashman also takes issue with the EU executive's plan to establish a long list of instances where sensitive papers could be kept out of the public's hands.

Söderman has warned that if the existing plan is not changed, "citizens would not so much enjoy rights as be dependent on the goodwill of officials".

Cashman expresses similar concerns, arguing that since EU citizens do not have an auto-matic right of access to internal documents, as two of the Union's institutions operate on the principle of confidentiality, there is no need for numerous exemptions from the planned new rules.

"General documents like legis-lative proceedings and measures adopted by according to the comitology procedures must be declared public," he said, adding that while documents could be kept confidential for reasons of privacy, professional secrecy, matters of internal and external security and judicial proceedings, the circumstances under which they could be withheld should be strictly defined.

Cashman also argues that documents given to the EU's institutions by member states or third parties should be made public, and says that exceptions to this right must be clearly defined "in the contents and objectives of the regulations".

In addition, he says the definition of a 'document' should be widened to include e-mail messages when they contain relevant information.

The Commission is arguing for a much stricter definition of a document, excluding informal messages, texts used for discussion purposes and papers setting out internal departments' opinions.

EU citizens should be given wide-ranging rights to information about how decisions are taken by the Union's institutions and not just access to individual pieces of paper, according to MEPs.