Strasbourg, 27/10/2000 (Agence Europe) - On the fringe of the European Parliament plenary session, the parliamentary committee on citizens' rights and freedoms adopted the report by British Labour member Michael Cashman on the framework regulation for public access to the documents of European institutions, that the European Commission presented in conformity with the provisions of Article 255 of the EU Treaty. The regulation covers general access by citizens to documents, and must be the subject of EP/Council co-decision procedure. This procedure serves as the Erupean Parliament's main argument in its challenge of the two decisions taken by the Council in July this year on classification and access to its own documents on security and defence. EUROPE recalls that the Parliament, which is currently negotiating with Council with a view to obtaining possible access for MEPs to these documents, took, as a provisional measure, action before the Court of Justice because it considers that the Council could not take these two specific decisions. In so doing, the Council underrated the Parliament's rights in the context of open co-decision procedure on general legislation.
The Cashman report, to be submitted to Parliament plenary session in November, proposes modification of several aspects of the general proposal by the European Commission. It adopts as a basic principle the right of citizens to gain access to documents. At the same time, it recognises that this access may be limited in a certain number of cases where the institutions may (but not "should", as the Commission had suggested) refuse access. The report also proposes reducing the list of documents that may be the subject of refusal. Documents concerned relate to: 1) public security; 2) defence and military issues; 3) monetary stability, 4) vital interests in the context of the EU's international relations, as well as those which, if divulged, would be detrimental to the economic and commercial interests of companies or to the right of individuals to protection of privacy. Access could also be refused for documents of an informal kind. The Cashman report states moreover that this regulation will not restrict the right of Member States to diffuse documents in respect of their national legislation.