EC secrets law
01 January 1991
EC secrets law
artdoc August=1992
The proposal to introduce an official secrecy law in the EC has
come under strong attack from several quarters (see Statewatch,
vol 2 no 3). Alex Falconer MEP, the rapporteur on the Legal
Affairs Committee of the European Parliament on the EC proposals
to introduce secrecy laws, said that the way the proposal had
been sent to the Parliament was unusual: 1) it should have been
referred to all Committees it would affect, that is several
committees, when it had only been sent to the Legal Affairs
Committee; 2) it had been sent under the `co-operation' procedure
which only allows the Parliament one chance to comment, whereas
proposals are usually sent under the `consultation' procedure
which give the Parliament two chances of comment (e.g. their
initial comments are sent back to the European Commission for
revision and a proposal then goes back to the Parliament again).
At the Legal Affairs Committee meeting on 23 June it was
agreed: a) to refer the proposal to three other Committees: Civil
Liberties & Internal Affairs, Environment, and Rules & Procedure;
b) to ask the Commission to set out the legal basis by which the
proposal had been referred to the Parliament under the
`co-operation' procedure; c) to ask the Commission to bring
forward freedom of information proposals.
The proposal has been strongly criticised by the International
Federation of Journalists (who have written to Jacques Delors
asking for a meeting), the European Federation of Trade Unions
and Article 19.
An explanatory memorandum circulated to MPs by the Foreign
Office says the UK is not in favour of the proposal as drafted.
The government's objection to the proposal is not one of
principle but rather because the proposal as presently drafted
would require legislation, `the measures which the UK think
should be adopted would not'. The government is in favour of
procedures to ensure an `agreed standard of protection' to
sensitive EC documents which would ensure the `free flow of
information between EC institutions and other member states'.
However, it favours more specific areas being protected and does
not want to see an `excessive administrative burden' placed on
member states. Perhaps they have in mind the UK Official Secrets
Act which specifically covers defence, policing, intelligence,
security and matters of international and foreign affairs. The
nub of the UK government argument is that `it remains an open
question whether a Council Regulation is the best means of
implementing such procedures'. This suggests that they would
favour an inter-governmental agreement which would not be subject
to scrutiny by the European Parliament. The EC proposal was
prepared by the Security Office of the EC, the Legal Service, the
Joint Research Centre and the Personnel Office (DG9), and would
have been cleared with the General Secretariat of the Council of
the European Communities (the Council Secretariat services the
12 EC governments).
EC vet job applications
Four Socialist MEPs from Portugal, Joo Cravinho, Luis Marinho,
Coimbra Martins and Maria Belo, have put down questions in the
European Parliament to the European Commission and the European
Council on the vetting of applicants for jobs in the Commission.
According to the Portugese newspaper Expresso the Security
Information Service (SIS), the internal security agency, is being
sent job applications by the Commission in Brussels and asked to
vet them.
The MEPs are asking why the SIS has access to these forms and
how do the Commission/Council reconcile this practice with the
defence of the rights of the applicants? The Security Office of
the Commission says this vetting is being carried out under
regulation 3 governing Euratom. It appears that applicants for
jobs at the Commission, not just for Euratom, are being referred
to the internal security agency in Portugal. The secrecy law
proposal (above) contai