Report from the Commission on the application in 2015 of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents

The effective implementation of the public's right to access documents held by the EU institutions is one of several means by which the EU seeks to increase transparency and accountability towards its citizens. In 2015, the Commission continued to put into practice its strong commitment to increased transparency in several ways. By the end of December 2015, information had been published about more than 7,000 bilateral meetings between Commissioners, Cabinet members and Directors General, and interest representatives. This allows citizens and stakeholders to know who is meeting the Commission and on which subjects.

A new, improved version of the Transparency Register was launched in January 2015. The Commission's Decision that Commissioners, Cabinet Members and Directors General only meet interest representatives who feature on the Transparency Register has considerably increased the visibility of entities seeking to influence policy formulation and implementation at EU level. The Register continued to grow steadily and currently contains over 9,300 entries, having attracted over 3,600 new registrants since January 2015.

During the second part of 2015, the Commission also implemented a good part of its Better Regulation Agenda presented in May 2015, with the objective of ensuring that EU policies to achieve their objectives in the most effective, efficient and transparent way. The Inter-institutional Agreement on Better Law-Making which the Commission proposed last year and was recently adopted reflects a shared commitment by the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission to improve transparency throughout the cycle of European decision-making. The Commission has also set up new stakeholder feedback mechanisms at very early stages in the preparation of proposal by publishing roadmaps and inception impact assessments.

Within this broader transparency agenda, the right of access to documents, laid down in Article 15(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and Regulation 1049/2001, continued to be one of the main cornerstones of the Commission's approach to transparency. It complemented the Commission's proactive publication, in parallel, of a wealth of information and documentation on its various webpages.

This report provides information on how the Commission applied the access-to-documents rules in 2015. It includes data on the number of access requests and the disclosure rate, and is based on statistical data which are summarised in annex. The statistics reflect the number of applications and replies and not the number of documents requested or released, which were far more numerous. Indeed, applications may cover a single document but more frequently a multitude of documents, or even entire files concerning a specific subject or procedure.

The importance of the right of access to documents within the Commission's transparency policy is immediately apparent from these statistics, as the requested documents were fully or partially disclosed in 84% of cases at the initial stage, and wider or even full access was granted in 41% of cases reviewed at the confirmatory stage.

• Primary Source

ESO: Background Information: Transparency http://www.europeansources.info/record/transparency-3/

---