Brussels, 31/08/2000 (Agence Europe) - British Liberal Graham Watson, Chair of the EP Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, has written to Parliament President Nicole Fontaine to ask her to refer to the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market the court action against decisions by the Council and its Secretary General to introduce "top secret" classification for documents relating to military and non-military crisis management in the context of ESDP (see EUROPE of 25 August, p.3). Mr Watson writes that these administrative decisions establish a classification that is supposed to be compulsory for other institutions, Member States and also citizens. "Under these conditions, it is the opinion of our committee that such a decision infringes upon the content of Article 255, paragraph 2, of the Treaty whose regulation must be established in co-decision between Parliament and Council", he states, and, after stressing that this protective court action aims to defend the prerogatives of the European Parliament, he specifies that the action in no way brings into question the need to establish, at Union level and where necessary, limits to access to the documents of institutions, mainly when the Union's internal and external security is concerned. However, Mr Watson also affirms, this must be carried out in the appropriate framework, namely the future regulation to be adopted in application of Article 255 of the Treaty. Also, the Council could not, without misjudging the Parliament's prerogatives, adopt, through internal regulation, restrictive application rules before adoption of this regulation (which is being examined according to codecision procedure).
The Committee on Citizens' Rights must hold a public hearing on access to documents, on Monday 18 September. It will then adopt the report by British Labour member Michael Cashman on the draft regulation, based on Article 255 of the EC Treaty, relating to the general principles and the limits which, for public or private interest reasons, govern the right of access to documents of the Parliament, Council and Commission.