Brussels, 16/12/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 15 December, in Strasbourg, the European Parliament took a stance in favour of broader public access to the documents of European Union institutions, after a series of amendments had been brought (394 votes to 197 and 35 abstentions) to the initial proposal. Regulation 1049/2001 aims to give the fullest possible effect to the right of public access to documents and to define the general principles and exceptions to such access on grounds of public or private interest.
“Only through transparency can citizens participate in an informed way in the democratic process, which is even more important in the current crisis”, the rapporteur, Michael Cashman (S&D, UK), states.
The Parliament gave a broader definition of the term “document” than proposed by the Commission, thus moving legislation more towards a “freedom of information act”. Any data content, whatever its medium (written on paper or stored in electronic form or as a sound, visual or audiovisual recording), concerning a matter falling within the sphere of responsibility of an EU institution, body, office or agency would be considered a document. The amended regulation applies to all documents held by a Community body, MEPs say.
Exceptions to the right of access. In principle, all documents of the institutions should be accessible to the public. Nonetheless, certain public and private interests (e.g. public security, intellectual property rights, etc) could be protected by way of exception. MEPs' amendments aim to clarify and to limit such exceptions. The latter would not apply to documents transmitted in the context of legislative procedures or for the purpose of influencing policy-making by lobbyists and other interested parties, MEPs underline.
Furthermore, these exceptions could not apply if there is “overriding public interest in disclosure”. This interest would be deemed to exist where the document requested relates to the “protection of fundamental rights and the rule of law, sound management of public funds, or the right to live in a healthy environment, including emissions into the environment”. An institution invoking one of these exceptions - fundamental rights, public finance, environment - would nonetheless have to “make an objective and individual assessment and show that the risk to the interest protected is foreseeable and not purely hypothetical, and define how access to the document could specifically and effectively undermine the interest protected”.
Classified documents. Parliament also inserted a new rule on the procedure to follow for using the classification - “EU top secret”, “EU secret”, “EU confidential” and “EU restricted” - and the declassification of documents. An institution may classify a document only where its disclosure would undermine the protection of the essential interests of the EU or of one or more of the member states, MEPs say, notably in public security, defence and military matters.
Member states should not have a right to veto access to documents originating from them, or a right to refer to provisions in their own legislation in order to justify confidentiality. They would, however, have to be consulted in order to assess whether one of the exceptions foreseen by this regulation is applicable.
MEPs will continue negotiations with the Council and the Commission on this file to try to reach an agreement. In the plenary debate, Commissioner Maros Sefcovic said: “This agreement risks taking time and I am afraid that, given the amendments proposed in the report, agreement on changes to the regulations is not within reach. I cannot of course anticipate the position that the Council will take on the proposed amendments but many of them cannot be accepted by the Commission”. The rapporteur points out that the Parliament can reject both Commission proposals and keep to the current regulation and to the new provisions of the Lisbon Treaty which, according to the EP legal department, are directly applicable. The commissioner added that the draft regulation would not entail a reduction in the number of documents accessible compared to the number accessible at present. (LC/transl.jl)