Brussels, 20/10/2000 (Agence Europe) - Nicole Fontaine, President of the European Union, decided Thursday evening, on recommendation by the Conference of Presidents, to refer to the Court of Justice two decisions taken by the EU Council and Secretary General Javier Solana, published in the Official Journal of 23 August, concerning the "top secret" classification of Esdp documents (see yesterday's EUROPE, p.16). We have been forced to make an appeal as a precautionary measure, as negotiations with the Council did not lead to satisfactory results, said Ms. Fontaine, stressing that the Council had decided unilaterally to limit access to the documents, despite the new provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty. It is "essential for democracy that the rules governing the transmission of these documents be decided with Parliament's participation", she said. While recognising that confidentiality was necessary, "especially in the context of the development of a defence policy", confidentiality must be an exception and warranted on a case by case basis., she underpinned.
A Parliament spokesperson said that the appeal as a precautionary measure would be formally lodged before the Court on Monday 23 October, the last deadline; the Council will have a month in which to submit its observations, and may then request an additional month. The spokesperson stipulated that, during the vote Thursday evening among the presidents of the groups, there had been 389 in favour the appeal (the EPP/ED, Liberal, Green, United Left/Nordic Green Left and the Europe of Democracies and Diversities groups) and 228 abstentions (Socialists, Union for a Europe of Nations, technical group of independent members). A spokesperson for the Socialist Group said that this group had abstained as it wanted to wait to see what happened to an appeal lodged on the same issue by the Netherlands (according to an EPP spokesperson, the Netherlands had announced such an appeal, but had not yet lodged it).
The parliamentary spokesperson stipulated the meeting of the Conference of Presidents had been preceded: - Wednesday evening, by a meeting in which had participated, for the Parliament, the chairs of three committees: legal affairs, foreign and constitutional. Ms. De Palacio, Mr. Brok and Mr. Napolitano (the chair of the Committee on Freedoms and Internal Affairs, Mr. Watson, had been prevented) and, for the Council, Coreper's President-in-Office, Pierre Vimont and the Council's Deputy Secretary General Pierre de Boissieu (Solana was not in Brussels); - Thursday morning, by a short meeting in which the Council had handed Parliament a working document which seemed to the parliamentarians to be a step back compared to the assurances of Vimont and de Boisieu. In its document, the Council sets out from the idea that confidentiality for the type of documents in question should be the rule, and does not refer to the transmission of certain documents to Parliament, but of "information" that would be provided every three months. Ms. de Palacio regarded this text "very disappointing", said the spokesperson, while adding that Parliament prefers continuing with the dialogue, and that negotiations with the Council would resume at next week's trilogy.
The President of the EPP/ED Group, Hans-Gert Poettering welcomed the decision taken by the President of the EP, noting that the new rules adopted by the Council were incompatible with Article 225 of the Treaty, providing for restrictions to the access of documents being decided on a proposal by the Commission, Parliament and Council. Denouncing "Solana's coup", the Co-President of the Greens, Heidi Hautala recalled that it was her Group that, on 4 September, had taken the initiative of taken the case to the Court of Justice.