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EU: European Commission: Report from the Commission on the application in 2010 of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents

01 August 2011

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EU: European Commission: Report from the Commission on the application in 2010 of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents (pdf). The Commission's annual report on public access to its document again makes very pitiful reading:

a) 26.42% of requests for documents are refused under Article 4.3 of the Regulation - to protect the "space to think", to keep secret documents under discussion;

b) the number of applications for documents has risen from 5,055 (2009) to 6,127 which is no at all surprising as the Commission's public register of documents is pathetic.

c) There are just 5,109 user sessions per month on the Commission's public register of documents - by way of comparison the Statewatch European Monitoring and Documentation Centre (SEMDOC) has 12,600 user sessions a month. This is primarily because the Commission's public register contains less than 10% of the documents it produces or receives and may of these do not give access to the document itself.

It will be recalled that Statewatch lodged a successful complaints with the European Ombudsman on the Commission's failure to maintain a complete register of documents under Article 11 of the Regulation on public access to documents: See: Statewatch wins European Ombudsman complaint against the European Commission over its public register of documents – but it refuses to comply (pdf)

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