Luxembourg, 09/11/2007 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 8 November, the Court of First Instance returned its ruling in the case T-194/04. It takes the view that the Commission was derelict in its obligations by refusing to communicate to the beer importer The Bavarian Lager Co. Ltd the identity of certain individuals present at a meeting convened by DG Internal Market and Financial Services in 1996. In this situation, the Court ruled, public access to documents takes priority over the confidentiality of the private data in question.
The beer importer, Bavarian Lager, applied to take part in a meeting convened to discuss its access to the UK market, which was held on 11 October 1996 between European Commissioners, UK ministers and the Confederation of Common Market Brewers (“Les Brasseurs de l'Europe”), but its request was turned down. The Commission then concealed the names of five of those who took part in the meeting in the minutes which were communicated to the importer. In justification of its actions, the Commission invoked regulation (EC) 45/2001 of the Parliament and Council on the protection of data of a personal nature. It argued that Bavarian Lager had demonstrated neither an express and legitimate purpose, nor the requirement for the information to be divulged, meaning that it must remain confidential. The Tribunal, on the other hand, took the view that the Commission was derelict in its obligations in virtue of regulation (EC) 1049/2001 of the Parliament and Council on public access to documents of the Community institutions. By virtue of this regulation, Bavarian Lager does not have to demonstrate a requirement for divulgence - the burden of proof is upon the Commission, which must demonstrate exactly how this divulgence could affect privacy. This, the Tribunal continued, it was unable to do. As neither party was able to support its argument with concrete evidence, the Tribunal ruled in favour of access to the documents.
The European ombudsman, Nikiforos Diamandouros, should be relieved to hear it; up until now, his views, which have no legal weight, have had absolutely no effect. In July of this year, in a matter brought before him by an observation group based in Amsterdam, the Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), he criticised the Commission for “maladministration”, after it had on several occasions deleted certain names from the published version of correspondence between DG Trade and lobbyists in the services sector. The ombudsman and CEO, whose views were completely ignored by the Commission, were awaiting the result of the Bavarian Lager case to decide on what to do next. According to Erik Wasselius of the CEO, this judgment is a good sign. “The Bavarian Lager case also went by the Ombudsman at an earlier stage, and he was ignored by the Commission”. This ruling by the Tribunal may now help to reinforce the authority of the ombudsman on similar issues in the future, Mr Wasselius hopes. It is also worth noting the European Transparency Initiative, the brainchild of the commissioner for administrative issues, audit and the fight against fraud, Siim Kallas (Estonia). With a launch planned for spring 2008, this programme aims to register all pressure groups active around the European institutions, to guarantee greater transparency of these representations of various interests. More information is available at: http: //ec.europa.eu/transparency/eti/index_fr.htm . (C.D.)