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EU: Regulation on public access to documents: the European Commission is the problem

01 May 2011

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EU: Regulation on public access to documents: the European Commission is the problem

- in its 2008 proposal the Commission put secrecy above openness by increasing the power of the institutions to refuse access to documents above establishing the public's right to know

- the Commission failed to withdraw its 2008 proposals which are incompatible with the Lisbon Treaty, because of its proposal to change the definition of a "document": "the definition of 'document' is an issue of primary law, ie the interpretation of the Treaty by the Court of Justice - it is not open to the institutions to define it in a way which limits the correct interpretation and application of the Treaty. In other words the rules on access to documents must apply to all 'documents' as defined by the Treaty - they cannot exclude entirely from their scope anything which is a document as defined by the Treaty." (Professor Steve Peers)

- the Commission 2011 proposals fails to abolish Article 4.3 of the Regulation in line with the Lisbon Treaty: the institutions' "space to think" in secret

- "for two years the Commission has "sat on its hands" and failed to respond to the "institutional impasse" between the Council and the European Parliament, it should now produce a completely new "Lisbonised" proposal" (Tony Bunyan)

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