Access to documents awareness ‘vital’

Date: 19/06/03

By Martin Banks

EU CITIZENS need to be made much more aware of their right to access documents held by the Union's institutions, a hearing on transparency was told on 12 June.

The hearing, at the European Parliament, also heard that greater effort is needed to ensure the European Commission, Parliament and Council of Ministers do not hide behind data protection and privacy rules as an excuse for withholding information.

UK Socialist deputy Michael Cashman, who briefed the hearing on his forthcoming report on how EU institutions apply the transparency rules, said there have been major strides towards improving public access to documents in recent years.

But "much more" needs to be done, he said, urging each of the institutions to undertake an information campaign making the public aware of their rights.

"People have got to know they have a right to access documents and how to go about doing it. At present, they don't and this is a big problem," he said.

He also wants EU governments to include some provisions on public access to documents when they fine-tune the draft constitutional treaty drawn up by the Convention on Europe's future.

The hearing was told that there were "striking" differences in the way the three institutions had responded to requests for information in the past 12 months.

The Commission turned down one in three requests to access documents. Just over a third of these came from law firms.

The Council, which has a public register of documents, refused one-fifth of requests while the Parliament, which generally handles less sensitive documents than the other two institutions, refused just 1% of requests it received.

EU institutions can refuse to provide information on grounds the release would harm public security or private data protection, but must be able to prove that it would be harmful. Cashman, though, says this arrangement is open to potential abuse. The Commission, for example, often cites unspecified "exemptions" as its reason for refusing to divulge information.

"This simply will not do," he said.

"At present, the feeling seems to be that unless it passes the "harm" test a request for information will be refused.

"The one thing the Commission and the other institutions seem incapable of understanding is that they have got to give a reason for refusing a request.

"The institution has got to prove that disclosure will - not may - undermine the data protection rules."

His report also calls for a common "portal" for accessing information from the institutions, possibly one internet site.

"At present, the Council and Parliament each have one register while the Commission has three and this can be very confusing."

It also recommends setting up an inter-institutional helpdesk to enable unspecified requests to be directed to the correct institution.

Cashman gives credit, however, to the institutions for making great strides as regards the public's right to documents. "There is a change of culture afoot but we have got to encourage each of the main institutions to build on this."

The present Commission has pledged to improve openness. President Romano Prodi publishes a list of his correspondence on the institution's website. The documents which do not contain sensitive information are released to the public, upon request.

Elizabeth Crossick, vice-president of the British Chamber of Commerce in Belgium, agreed there had been "huge" progress made in EU openness. "However, openness is not yet a way of life. We would like to see a culture of openness where the natural instinct is to provide rather than obstruct," she told the hearing.

"We believe this should be enshrined in the European constitution."

EU citizens should be made more aware of their right to access EU documents, according to a forum on openness and transparnecy held on 12 June 2003