On Tuesday 13 February, the European Ombudsman, Emily O'Reilly recommended that the Council of the EU improve the transparency of its legislative process and explained that “The approach falls short of what is expected of the Council in terms of legislative transparency”.
The investigation opened in March 2017 concludes that the Council has been unable to systematically record the identities of the member states that take a position during the discussions on the draft laws, which are often developed through the use of “vague references to the un-identified delegations”. This undermines the practice by disproportionately marking documents as not for distribution or for “limited" use.
“It’s almost impossible for citizens to follow the legislative discussions in the Council between national government representatives. This ‘behind-closed-doors’ approach risks alienating citizens and feeding negative sentiment,” said Ms O’Reilly, who also explained that this practice only succeeds in propagating “the ‘blame Brussels’ culture”.
She is now calling on the Council to systematically record the positions expressed by the member states in the Council working parties and at COREPER and to proactively make these documents available to the public on time. Ms O'Reilly also requested that clear criteria are identified when using “limited" status and that this status is revised before the adoption of legislation.
She highlighted the high degree of transparency at the second co-legislator, namely, the European Parliament and suggested developing a dedicated and updated website for each legislative proposal on the model of the European Parliament’s Legislative Observatory.
She also affirmed, “Making the EU legislative process more accountable to the public, by being more open, would send an important signal ahead of the European elections in 2019”.
The Council of the EU has until 9 May 2018 to respond to these recommendations and, “given the importance of this question to European citizens", any request for an extended deadline, will not be seen favourably, warned Ms O'Reilly. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)