Brussels, 20/11/2000 (Agence Europe) - The working group of the EU Council on access to documents will continue examining this delicate issue, on Thursday, on the basis of a non-paper submitted by the Finnish delegation. EUROPE recalls that this country (like the Netherlands that was the first to appeal to the Court of Justice) disputes the two decisions taken by the Council this summer of introducing systematic classification of documents relating to Esdp (European Security and Defence Policy).
The non-paper is in favour of a clear and precise definition of documents for which it is necessary, in the general framework of the regulation stemming from Article 255 of the Treaty, to have special protection. Regarding documents emanating from Community institutions, only those responding to the needs of secrecy as set out in Article 4 of the regulation being drawn up (according to the EP/Council co-decision procedure) should come within that category. The dissemination of documents emanating from third parties could not take place without the consent of those third parties. Classification and, whence, access to documents would thus be dependent on the origin, nature and contents of the documents.