Brussels, 24/04/2001 (Agence Europe) - An extraordinary meeting of Coreper on Monday afternoon allowed Member States to analyse the compromise text reached by Parliament and Council negotiators with a view to adoption of the regulation on public access to documents. During a press conference, Sweden's Permanent Representative Gunnar Lund felt that the Swedish Presidency's aim to conclude the dossier, which is the subject of codecision procedure, in a single reading should be reached early in May. If, on Wednesday, the text receives the endorsement of the EP Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights and a little later by Coreper, which is meeting again that same day, it could be approved by the plenary on 3 May in Brussels, thus making its final adoption possible just a few days after expiry of the 1 May deadline fixed by Article 255 of the Treaty. "We are very close to an agreement", said Mr Lund, while recognising that certain questions are still to be discussed with Parliament. It is mainly a matter of certain wordings over which some Member States have expressed reservation. It mainly concerns the mention, in Article 5, of the possibility left to Member States to respect "national arrangements" regarding access to documents in so far as they do not question the aims of the Community regulations. This wording, which is supported by Sweden and Ireland, was criticised by several other Member States including France.
The draft text stresses that "each institution must respect its security rules". Article 4 specifies that the institutions must refuse access to a document whose diffusion would be harmful to: (1) public interest concerning: - public safety, - the defence of military questions, - international relations, - financial, monetary or economic policies of the Community or of one of its Member States; and (2) respect of the privacy and integrity of individuals in the context of the protection of personal data. Unless there is a higher public interest justifying that the document be divulged, the institutions must refuse access if diffusion is detrimental to: - commercial interests, including intellectual property, - jurisdictional proceedings, - inquiries, inspections and audits. Access may, under the same conditions, be refused for any internal document as well as for any document containing information on positions expressed, even after the decision has been formally finalised. The institution to which request for access is addressed must consult the third party from which the document emanates. Each Member State has a right of veto on documents that come from that State. The period for protection of documents is a maximum of 30 years but may be prolonged in certain cases. All documents connected to public security, defence and military questions, international relations, financial, monetary and economic policies of the Community and of one of its Member States may be classified "top secret", "secret" or "confidential" by the institution according to its own rules. These documents cannot be mentioned on the register of the institution or declassified except with the agreement of the author (institution, organisation or State of origin).
Open letter from civil society not to undermine existing rights
In an open letter addressed to the members of the parliamentary committee, several organisations - Statewatch, ECAS, EEB, the European Federation of Journalists - and three professors of law, Steve Peers, Ulf Oberg and Deidre Curtin, stress that the fundamental role of the European Parliament is to protect citizens' rights while the proposal of regulation undermines existing rights (in the context of the 1993 Council decision on access to documents, as interpreted by the Court of Justice) and contradicts the spirit of Article 255 which aims to strengthen citizens' rights. This very restricted text largely extends the provisions of the Council decision on classification of documents taken last summer for documents concerning security and defence policy (ESDP).
A specialist on the issue working in one of the three institutions noted that this text should not only be the subject of criticism. Given the problems that it may give rise to and a certain number of inconsistencies, it could be brought into question by the Court of Justice. Blinded by the need to safeguard the right of Parliament to access to classified documents, which is today the subject of an interinstitutional agreement whose application depends on an agreement on the regulation under Article 255, the MEPs preferred to leave it up to Council to carry out "legislative harmonisation based on its security regulation" adopted unanimously on 19 March (see also EUROPE of 20 April, p.7).