WRITTEN QUESTION E-0539/01

by Nelly Maes (Verts/ALE) and Gabriele Stauner (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(23 February 2001)

Subject: Unanswered questions in connection with the ECHO affair

In ground 49 of his judgment of 15 January 2001 in case T-236/00 R, the President of the Court of First Instance expressly stressed the right of every Member of Parliament pursuant to Article 197(3) of the EC Treaty to put questions to the Commission and to receive answers, even where these involve the transmission of confidential information.

On 26 January 1999 the Commission did not reply to written questions E-3613/98, E-3614/98, E-3615/98, E-3616/98, E-3617/98, E-3618/98 and E-3619/98(1) in connection with the ECHO affair, referring instead to the work of the Committee on Budgetary Control.

Since then these questions have lost none of their topicality. Is the Commission now prepared to answer them point by point?

(1) OJ C 182, 28.6.1999, p. 108.

Answer given by Mr Prodi on behalf of the Commission

(5 April 2001)

In his order of 15 January 2001 in Case T-236/00 R Gabriele Stauner and others v. Parliament and Commission, the President of the Court of First Instance finds in ground 49 as follows:

The fact that the framework agreement states that certain information may be provided only to the parliamentary bodies listed at paragraph 1.4 of annex 3, namely the President of the Parliament, the chairpersons of the parliamentary committees concerned, the Bureau and the Conference of Presidents, does not strip individual Members of Parliament of their right to put questions to the Commission and to receive answers from it, even where these involve the transmission of confidential information, as was the case before the adoption of the framework agreement. It should be pointed out in this connection that the Commission's discretion to decide whether to communicate confidential information in its reply to a question put by an individual Member of Parliament under the third paragraph of Article 197 EC and in accordance with the relevant provisions of Parliament's rules of procedure is not affected even indirectly by the framework agreement.

This ground must be read in conjunction with grounds 50 and 51, which state as follows:

However, where a request for confidential information is made by Parliament, that is, by one of the parliamentary bodies referred to in paragraph 1.4 of annex 3 to the framework agreement, the forwarding of this information by the Commission is now governed by the provisions of the framework agreement. It follows that, at first sight, the framework agreement, which is confined to regulating relations between the Commission and Parliament, has not changed the legal situation of individual Members as regards their right under the third paragraph of Article 197 EC, does not affect the right there established and thus has no legal effect on individual Members of Parliament.

The President of the Court of First Instance thus indicates that the framework agreement on relations between Parliament and the Commission, approved by Parliament on 5 July 2000, does not alter the way in which the Commission has to deal with questions put by Members of the European Parliament under Article 197 EC. He also points out that the Commission has a degree of discretion to decide whether to communicate confidential information in a reply to a question put under Article 197 EC.

Given these findings by the President of the Court, the Commission considers that it has nothing to add to the replies it gave to the questions referred to by the Honourable Member or to the detailed information that it has provided on this case on a number of occasions.