Parliament papers made more accessible

Date: 04/09/1997

By Rory Watson

THE general public will have easier access to internal European Parliament documents under new rules now being put in place.

More than three years after the two other leading EU institutions - the European Commission and the Council of Ministers - introduced their own rules, the Parliament has at last followed suit.

“I think it was a psychological thing. Because we legislate in public we thought we were more open than other institutions. But that was not the case. Officially, the only documents we could give out were those adopted by the plenary,” admitted one senior official.

Although the Parliament has invariably been more lenient in handling requests for internal documents, it was forced to set out formal rules after the absence of clear-cut guidelines was strongly criticised by the European Ombudsman.

The initiative has been welcomed by the institution's President José María Gil-Robles. He predicted that it would strengthen public confidence and introduce greater democracy into parliamentary business.

But critics believe that the initiative does not go far enough and argue that some of the conditions are more onerous than those applied by the Council and Commission. While the latter two pledge to deal with requests within 30 days, the Parliament has given itself 45 days.

“At the beginning they even suggested two months. This just shows that the Parliament's administration has very little understanding of public access to documents. It means citizens are guaranteed certain treatment and requests should be handled quickly. If the Council can deal with 15 countries, then it should be easier for the Parliament,” said Finnish Green MEP Heidi Hautala.

Privately, officials confirm that they will be aiming to meet a 30-day deadline, but have pushed for the extra leeway because of the difficulties in handling paperwork in 11 different languages.

Critics also object to the proviso that the Parliament may insist that documents it hands out are not reproduced for “publicity purposes”- a condition which no other EU institution has laid down.

But the new rules have been given a cautious welcome by Tony Bunyan, a veteran campaigner for freedom of information, whose constant pressure and demands for Council documents have forced Union governments to release previously confidential papers.

“In general, just as with the Commission and the Council, it will depend on how the Parliament uses these rules. Will they start from a principle of openness and then apply exceptions or vice versa? At the end of the day, how will they operate it?” he asked.

In general terms, the new parliamentary rules closely follow those which the Council and Commission have applied since early 1994. All three state that requests for internal documents may be refused if disclosure might undermine protection of the public interest, legal proceedings, commercial and industrial secrecy or individual privacy.

MEPs, however, have added a further restriction by stipulating that access “may be refused in order to protect the confidentiality of deliberations of political groups, of parliamentary bodies, where they meet in camera, or of the relevant services of its secretariat”.

While acknowledging that political groups' internal strategy papers should remain confidential, campaigners for easier access to internal documents fear that the proviso could be used to block the release of other material shedding light on group activities.

“We ought to know how the groups use the various sums which they receive from the Union budget. It is public money after all, but will this proviso be used to prevent this information being given out?” asked Hautala.

The Green MEP also believes that the rules could have been improved if applicants whose requests were refused had been given the right to submit an appeal to the Parliament's petitions committee.

In one practical way, the Parliament's rules, which must be reviewed in two years' time, go further than those implemented by the Council and Commission. Documents held by the latter two institutions can only be consulted in Brussels. Parliamentary papers, however, are now also accessible in the institution's various information offices in the 15 member states.