Strasbourg, 13/04/2000 (Agence Europe) - The European mediator, Jacob Söderman, had, on the sideline of the European Parliament's plenary session in Strasbourg, a working breakfast with the President of the European Commission Romano Prodi during which he discussed in particular the draft regulation on the public's access to documents. This proposal is now in the legislative process and obviously I hope that the Parliament will introduce changes in favour of greater transparency, said Mr. Söderman to the press, while criticising in particular the large amount of discretion that, in his opinion, this draft leaves the institutions as to the possibility of demanding confidentiality for one or other documents. "This is in the hands of the Parliament, let's hope for the best," he added. My relations with Prodi are "quite friendly" now and my talks with him where fruitful, he said, while specifying that Romano Prodi "is a little unhappy that nobody gives him credit for putting his own e-mail on the Internet. It is a nice gesture, but it does not solve the problem of transparency", felt Mr. Söderman.
Furthermore, Mr. Söderman presented to the press his special report (on which we will return) on the adoption of a code of good administrative behaviour by civil servants within each institution or Community body. This code should be accessible to the public, as we want to give rights to the citizens in the face of the European administration, said Mr. Söderman to the press (his report recalls that the European Commission presented a draft code, but has yet not adopted it and neither the Parliament or the Council have adopted such as code.