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EU: ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS REGULATION: Council of the European Union seeks to overturn "Turco judgment" which would allow access to legal advice to the Council concerning legislative issues
01 June 2012
The Minutes of COREPER II on 8, 10 and 14 May 2012 (the high-level meeting on Member Sates' permanent representatives in Brussels) state:
"Recast of Regulation (EC) o 1049/2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents (First reading)
- Preparation of informal trilogues: The Committee agreed to mandate the Presidency to initiate informal trilogues with the European Parliament and the Commission with a view to achieving a political agreement on a pre-negotiated Council position at first reading.
The Committee agreed by qualified majority the draft mandate set out in the fourth column of document 9441/12 with the following modifications:
- Article 4a, paragraph 1: "Access to legal advice relating to issues which are the subject of a decision-making process until the relevant act becomes definitive or regarding a question of law which has not been decided, in last instance, by the Court of Justice, shall be presumed to undermine the protection of legal advice. The applicant may demonstrate that there is an overriding public interest justifying the disclosure of the documents.";
- Article 4a, paragraph 3: "For the purpose of this article, the principles underlying this regulation do not in themselves constitute such an overriding public interest.".
SE delegation did not agree with the contents of the mandate, as set out in 9441/12, and made the following statement : "The compromise text would lead to less transparency in the EU. Hence, Sweden cannot endorse the text." EE, FI and NL delegations aligned themselves to this statement."
See:
Recast of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents (first reading) - Preparation of informal trilogues (Council doc: 9941/12, pdf)
See also Statewatch's Observatory:
Regulation on access to EU documents: 2008-ongoing