Swedish press puts spotlight on secrecy

Date: 19/10/1995

THE arrival of Sweden and its tradition of open government is already having an impact in the corridors of the EU's law courts.

Journalisten, the in-house magazine for Swedish journalists, has complained to the Court of First Instance about secrecy in the EU's institutions, appealing against decisions taken by the Council of Ministers to block access to 16 documents concerning Europol, the intelligence gathering agency.

Ironically, all these documents had been handed out either by the Swedish ministry of justice or by the police according to their constitutional requirement to provide freedom of access to information.

In a letter of defence, the Council secretariat has raised the issue of internal security as a reason for denying access to these documents, based on a code of conduct from 1993.

The case brings a well-kept Brussels secret into the spotlight. Denmark and Sweden have consistently made documents public which remain officially secret in Brussels, but both have avoided an out-and-out clash with other member states until now.