EU: Secrets law
01 July 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 Joao 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) contains several clauses governing the introduction of vetting, however, it seems that the Commission