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EU: Statewatch lodges two complaints against the European Commission with the European Ombudsman

01 April 2007

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Press release (full-text, pdf)

- the Commission has failed to maintain a proper public register of documents with only a fraction of those produced listed

- the Commission failed to produce its annual report on access to documents for 2005 in the year 2006

- Statewatch says both are breaches of the Regulation and therefore cases of maladministration

Tony Bunyan, Director of Statewatch, comments:

"The European Commission is not above the law it is the custodian of EU law, responsible for ensuring it is properly implemented. This makes it all the more reprehensible that under the Regulation on access to documents the Commission has failed to maintain a proper register of documents and failed to publish an annual report for 2005.

Open, transparent and accountable decision-making is the essence of any democratic system. Secrecy is its enemy and produces distrust, cynicism and apathy among citizens and closed minds among policy makers.

The European Commission must be called to account for its actions or rather its failures to act"

Also going out today for immediate release are:

1. Statewatch Briefing Note on the Commission's Green Paper on the Regulation on access to EU documents

2. The full-text of the Commission's Green Paper (penultimate version)

3. Statewatch's Observatory on "FOI in the EU" has been re-designed and updated with many new features

Statewatch - Reporting on openness and secrecy in the EU since 1992

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