Finns open up EU decision-making

Date: 01/07/1999

By Gareth Harding
THE incoming Finnish presidency has drawn up a series of wide-ranging plans to fulfil its pledge to open up the EU's decision-making process to greater public scrutiny.

Under proposals set to be agreed by the Finnish government tomorrow (2 July), Helsinki plans to publish the agendas for all Council of Ministers meetings, including its powerful working groups and the weekly meetings of EU ambassadors, on its Internet site. It will also seek changes to the rules governing televised debates at ministerial meetings in an effort to make them more interesting to the public.

The powerful Economic and Financial Committee is likely to be the most high-profile target of Helsinki's campaign to make the work of the EU institutions more transparent.

The committee, which groups together top officials from finance ministries and central banks with the European Commission and the European Central Bank, is the most secretive of the EU's panels. The dates of its regular meetings in Brussels building are never published and its agendas are kept secret, even though it does all the preparatory economic policy work for finance ministers and summits.

When he took over as EFC chairman, Jean Lemierre said he had no intention of changing the committee's culture of secrecy. But Helsinki intends to take the first step by publishing the schedule of its meetings and is also considering making the agendas public.

Finland has made opening up the EU's arcane decision-making procedures one of the priorities of its six-month stint at the helm of the Union. Launching the incoming presidency's programme, Finnish Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen said it was "essential that the EU's operations are open and transparent and the legislation is clear and of the highest quality", adding: "Democracy cannot function without open institutions."

Helsinki also believes that making more information available to the public will improve the EU's image and bring it closer to the citizen. "If people fail to see the benefits of the Union it is because it is seen as secretive and obscure." said a presidency spokesman.

However, Finnish hopes of making rapid progress on a draft law guaranteeing citizens access to EU documents have been held up by the legislative freeze in the Commission. The Union's executive confirmed last week that it would not issue a draft paper on transparency until the new team takes office in October.

Traditionally secretive member states such as France and Spain might balk at Helsinki's plans, but Finnish officials say that as long as the papers are published as presidency - as opposed to Council - documents, there is nothing to stop Helsinki releasing them.

The Finns are also planning to put the reference numbers for documents upon which discussions will be based on Council agendas. Officials say that although this would not give the public the automatic right to view the papers concerned, people would at least know which reports to ask for. "Unless they know what documents will be debated in a meeting, they do not know what is being discussed in there." said one.

Europe's northernmost country has also pledged to try to make the televised debates in ministerial meetings more exciting. "Nobody is interested in them now." said one official. "The topics are of no interest, the interventions are far too long and general and the whole thing is a political non-event."

The Finns plan to spice things up by forwarding a "controversial and provocative" discussion paper to governments prior to open debates. It will also seek the agreement of other countries next week to limit ministers' interventions in discussions to five minutes. At present, most politicians read prepared statements which can sometimes drag on for up to half an hour.

Finland, which has the highest rate of Internet connections in the world, also aims to make full use of its website (http:/presidency.finland.fi) to bring the public speedy, interactive information on the EU's work. The site will be updated daily and press briefings will be broadcast live.