Luxembourg, 25/07/2001 (Agence Europe) - The fifth chamber of the Court of First Instance (CFI), presided over by Sweden's Pernilla Lindh, rejected the appeal by a senior official of the Finnish Foreign Ministry, since then dismissed for an affair of espionage with the Russians. Olli Mattila, wanted access to EU international policy documents. From the Court's ruling it emerges that it was also to prove that documents communicated to the Russians were not confidential. The Court confirms the confidential nature of most of the documents that the Council and Commission had refused to hand over to him.
The European judges state that the documents to which the Council had refused him access were established in the context of negotiations, and contain information on the European Union's position in the framework of its relations with Russia and Ukraine, as well as in negotiations to be undertaken with the United States over Ukraine. The ruling adds that the sensitive nature of these documents is, moreover, corroborated by the fact that, like the applicant stated in at the hearing, the Supreme Court of Finland sentenced him for having communicated to the Russian State documents whose contents covered practically those of the documents that access had been refused him by the (European) institutions.
The Supreme Court of Finland sentenced Olli Mattila, son of a former Minister, to one and two years of prison, part of which suspended, for having communicated EU documents to Russia. Olli Mattila was part of the Finnish delegation that took part in the work of the European Union's working party concerning the Federation of Russia and Eastern Europe. It was in this role that he had had access to the documents. The Council only agreed to communicate one document to him, concerning the outcome of the work of the "Eastern Europe and Central Asia Group of 23 September 1997" as it did not "contain any information on the substance of the documents in question", the Council explained.
The other documents demanded by Mr. Mattila were confidential: - the Commission's information note described "in a very precise manner" the Union's position and priority objectives in its negotiations with the United States over Ukraine. Divulging this note could have had "a negative effect on future European Union relations with Ukraine"; - the annotated draft agenda for the first EU/Ukraine Cooperation Council of 8 and 9 June that contained in-depth comments on each item on the agenda, including on the EU's stances and objectives; - the confidential report of the meeting between the Troika and the United States, in Washington on 10 February 1998, which contained detailed comments made by the American delegation; - a document concerning the comments by Mr. Primakov on Russia/Latvia relations in the "confidential context of the bilateral meeting between foreign ministers; - a draft document preparing the EU's negotiating stance with the United States on the energy resources of the Caspian Sea and that broached "certain delicate issues" that emerged during negotiations between the two parties.
Olli Mattila disputed the fact that the Council and Commission had refused him the documents "in block", which, he claimed, was contrary to the principle of proportionality. For the CFI, the "principle of proportionality enables the Council and Commission, in special cases where the volume of the document or that of the passages to censure would cause them a disproportionate administrative task, to place in the balance, on the one hand, public access to fragmented parts, and, on the other, the burden of work that would stem from that".