For a lobby organisation or a law firm, to guarantee a permanent flow of information from Mr. Leak means that the machinery must be well oiled with lunches, dinners and even friendly sailing tours. However innocent this may seem to some, to me it inevitably smells of corruption. In a democratic society based on the rule of law, it would be better that the rules on transparency be such that they are sound and well balanced, promote transparency and that they are fully respected. Those documents that are confidential for a good reason should stay confidential. There is one further reason why I do not like transparency based on leaking and that is that leaking only takes place in the higher circles, in the political and lobbying business class.
Ordinary citizens have to ask for documents according to the rules.
For them, the rules are applied in a strict and formal way. That is the way in the economy class. The choice of papers is limited or non-existent. There is one group in the European Union that is left with many obligations and few written rights and that is the European citizens. This is particularly the case when they are dealing with the European administration.