WRITTEN QUESTION E-0600/01

by Heide Rühle (Verts/ALE) and Gabriele Stauner (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(1 March 2001)

Subject: Forwarding of highly confidential information by the Commission

Under the framework agreement of 6 July 2000 between Parliament and the Commission, the Commission can provide selected officers or bodies of Parliament with certain information classified by the Commission as highly confidential, which may not be passed on to other Members of Parliament.

Can the Commission provide a list of all the cases in which it has made use of this procedure and indicate in each specific case to which of Parliament's officers or bodies confidential information was provided and what it was about.

Is the Commission aware that this procedure involving the provision of specific information to individual officers or bodies is in breach of Parliament's Rules of Procedure, which stipulate that confidential documents and information forwarded to Parliament must be examined by the parliamentary committee responsible and must be made available to all committee members for this purpose?

Can the Commission make available on a confidential basis copies of the notes and documents forwarded under this procedure?

Can the Commission provide a copy of the internal rules now in force for answering Written Question pursuant to Article 197 of the EC Treaty? To what extent were these rules changed to take account of the provisions of the framework agreement?

Answer given by Mr Prodi on behalf of the Commission

(24 April 2001)

The Commission does not have a centralised list of all the confidential documents or information supplied to Parliament in response to requests under Annex III of the framework agreement of 6 July 2000. The Commission takes the view that it is for each department to implement the framework agreement correctly and has produced a guide to assist them in doing so. The replies to Parliament's requests for confidential documents or information are, in the first instance, handled on a decentralised basis by the department responsible for the subject in question.

The Commission does not agree with the Honourable Members' interpretation of Annex VII, point 3, of Parliament's Rules of Procedure (14th edition), to the effect that this provision requires confidential documents to be circulated to all members of the parliamentary committee responsible. The Commission believes that this provision allows such information to be made available to the members of a parliamentary committee, but does not stipulate this as a requirement. It does not, therefore, see any conflict between this provision and the framework agreement.

Several other parliamentary questions have sought to obtain from the Commission the documents sent to Parliament under the terms of the framework agreement. The Commission would therefore refer the Honourable Members to the answers to Questions E-3240/00, P-3478/00, E 4072/00, P-203/01, E-539/01 and P-571/01 by Ms Stauner.

A copy of the internal rules on the preparation of replies to parliamentary questions will be sent directly to the Honourable Members and to Parliament's Secretariat. These rules were not amended following the conclusion of the framework agreement, for the reasons explained by the Commission in its reply to Questions P-203/01 and E-539/01 and in paragraphs 49, 50 and 51 of the Order of the President of the Court of First Instance of 15 January 2001 in Case T-236/00 R, Gabriele Stauner and Others v. European Parliament and Commission.