Brussels, 14/05/2009 (Agence Europe) - In a letter sent on 14 May to Commission President José Manuel Barroso, and to Commissioners Catherine Ashton (Trade), Siim Kallas (Transparency) and Margot Walström (Communication), the Corporate Europe Observatory and several civil society organisations call on the European Commission to take action on the secretive information policy applied by its DG Trade. At issue is a leaked internal memo which encourages staff to conceal information about meetings with lobbyists in case of access to information requests. The letter calls on the Commission to undertake an urgent review of DG Trade's access to documents policy and to immediately release documents which have been withheld from public scrutiny as a result of this policy. The leaked memo advises officials to avoid remarks about informal meetings with industry representatives in emails which might be subject to information requests. It also suggests that staff keep two types of meeting reports, so that politically controversial issues, internal assessments of meetings and follow-up proposals do not need to be disclosed. The memo refers particularly to reports about meetings with third parties, such as industry, as these are “favourite 'targets' of requests for access to documents, especially by NGOs”. (E.H./transl.rt)