The General Court of the EU has upheld the European Parliament's refusal to give access to 4 million documents on the daily allowances, travel allowances and parliamentary assistance allowances of MEPs, in a judgment returned on Tuesday 25 September (cases T-639 to T-666/15).
In 2015, several journalists and journalist associations asked the European Parliament for access to the above-mentioned documents over the period between June 2011 and July 2015 inclusive, which was refused.
In its judgment, the General Court rejects the appeals on the grounds that the plaintiffs have not proven the need to transfer documents containing personal data that would make it possible to identify the MEPs.
The Court reiterates that the institutions of the EU may deny access to such documents if access to them would harm the privacy of an individual, pursuant to directive 95/46 and regulation 45/2001. Access can be granted as long as both of the following conditions are met: - the need for the transfer must be demonstrated; - there is no reason to believe that the transfer will infringe the legitimate interests of the person concerned.
According to the General Court, the first condition is not met in this instance. The applicants have not provided evidence that the transfer of the personal data in question would ensure sufficient controls on MEPs' spending. The General Court also considers that the arguments put forward aim not so much at challenging the legality of the Parliament's refusal as at denouncing the shortcomings and ineffectiveness of the Parliament's internal expenditure control mechanisms.
As for the argument that the Parliament could have provided partial access to the documents, obscuring the personal data, the General Court considers that this would have made access to the documents pointless and entailed an excessive administrative burden.
According to the European Parliament's website, the daily allowance of MEPs stands at €313 for each day an MEP is present in Brussels or Strasbourg, travel costs not including the European Parliament's institutional activities are reimbursed up to a maximum annual ceiling of €4264 and the monthly allowance for general costs for activities carried out in the MEP's constituency is €4416. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)