On Tuesday, 29 October, ClientEarth announced that, following a complaint it had submitted, the European Ombudsman has asked the Council of the EU to provide more documentation regarding the negotiations that determine the total allowable catches (TACs) and fishing quotas.
ClientEarth commented that “less than two months before the Fisheries Council decides on fishing quotas for 2020, the recommendation could make the decision-making process, which is opaque at the moment, more transparent”.
On 25 October, the Ombudsman, Emily O'Reilly, adopted a recommendation in which she assesses that the decision-making process leading to the adoption of the regulation on TACs and quotas is “sufficiently transparent only if the Council makes the relevant documents available proactively”, which would mean making these documents public when they become available, or shortly afterwards.
The Council of the EU argued that disclosing documents of this nature, such as the 'bible' (the document that sets out the countries' position on each of the proposed fishing quotas), before the final TAC Regulation is adopted, would “undermine the ongoing decision-making process”. It therefore invoked the corresponding exception in Regulation 1049/2001 to withhold access to the documents.
Maladministration. Emily O'Reilly notes that “the systematic classification by the Council of the EU of documents related to the process of adopting the 2018 and 2019 TAC Regulation as 'LIMITED' documents constitutes an instance of maladministration”.
The European Ombudsman's recommendation is as follows: the Council should “proactively make public documents related to the adoption of the TAC Regulation at the time they are circulated to Member States or as soon as possible thereafter”. The Council has until 27 January 2020 to respond to this recommendation.
To read the Ombudsman's recommendation, go to: http://bit.ly/34aR7cj (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)