Brussels, 28/05/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 28 May, European Ombudsman Emily O'Reilly opened an investigation into transparency in the inter-institutional “trialogue” negotiating process involving the European Parliament, the EU Council of Ministers and the European Commission in their search for compromises over draft legislation.
The Ombudsman has asked the three institutions for information about their disclosure policies on trialogue documents, including details of meetings, documents relating to ongoing trialogues, minutes or notes drawn up after such meetings, as well as lists of participants. She is expecting a reply by 30 September 2015.
In order to get a full overview of the documents exchanged during trialogue negotiations, the Ombudsman will inspect the same two trialogue files in each of the three institutions. The files she has chosen are those concerning the clinical trials regulation and the mortgage credit directive.
O'Reilly said: “Trialogues are where deals are done that affect every EU citizen. They are now an established feature of how the EU adopts laws. European citizens, businesses and organisations should be able to follow each stage of the law-making procedure and to understand how the negotiators arrive at the endpoint”.
In the EU's co-decision procedure, Parliament and Council must jointly adopt legislative proposals submitted by the Commission and while the procedure can entail up to three readings, the increased use of trialogues has meant that around 80% of EU laws are now agreed at first reading. An estimated 1,500 trialogue meetings took place over the past five years
The European Movement International organisation welcomes the opening of the investigation by European Ombudsman, which is in line with the movement's existing policy on “more democracy”. (Lionel Changeur)