Brussels, 01/03/2006 (Agence Europe) - By unanimously adopting the report from David Hammerstein Mintz (Greens/EFA, Spain) on 23 February, the EP Petitions Committee has made a clear call to the Council of the EU to open its meetings to the public, arguing that it was “unacceptable for the EU's most important law-making body still to meet behind closed doors”. According to MEPs, “the Council should respond to the calls for greater transparency coming from Parliament, civil society and the general public”. The Hammerstein Mintz report points out that EP committee meetings are held in public and states that there is “no logical reason” for the continued disparities between Parliament and Council regarding standards of transparency, particularly in respect of co-decision procedures. MEPs believe these transparency rules should also apply to Coreper, the body of ambassadors permanently representing the Member States at the EU, which prepares Council negotiations. They believe that holding meetings in public would enhance the legitimacy of Council decisions in the eyes of the people and would promote and intensify public debate on European issues. Consequently, the Petitions Committee asks the Council to amend its Rules of Procedure and change its working methods so that meetings in which it is acting in its legislative capacity are open and accessible to the public. The Council should also broadcast its public meetings, including transmitting them on the Internet, provide dates and agendas of those meetings in good time and issue official minutes “in all official languages” of the EU. MEPs call upon the Austrian Presidency to place this issue on the agenda of the European Council as a matter of priority and to make “a solemn commitment” on 9 May 2006 (Europe Day) to amend immediately the Council's Rules of Procedure and review the regulation on access to documents by the end of this year in agreement with the European Parliament. At the end of December 2005, the Council formally adopted the decision to open to the public all its debates and votes on legislative proposals within the co-decision procedure (see EUROPE 9095). To this end, an Internet site is due to become operational by the middle of the year. In January, European Ombudsman Nikiforos Diamandouros said again that the Council had decided to open to the public only debates related to the co-decision procedure, which represents only a part of the debates in the legislative process. Following a complaint in 2003 by CDU MEP Elmar Brok (see EUROPE 9049), in a special report published in October 2005, the Ombudsman called on the Council to go further in the transparency process.