WRITTEN QUESTION E-2847/00

by Bart Staes (Verts/ALE) to the Commission

(8 September 2000)

Subject: Access to EU documents

During the summer months a working party of senior Coreper officials drew up a proposal for a drastic reduction in the accessibility of EU documents. Yet the Treaty of Amsterdam expressly provides for the right of access to such documents.

The working party wants to use the written procedure to enshrine this proposal in a binding text. This will excluder the European Parliament, the Commission and the September Council.

Only the representatives of the Netherlands, Sweden and Finland have opposed the curtailing of the right of access. The other Coreper representatives appear to believe that the Commission proposal a code of conduct via the codecision procedure does not reflect their personal views on access to EU documents.

1. Does the Commission subscribe to the proposal concerning access to EU documents as drawn up by a working party of senior Coreper officials? If not, will it appeal against the proposal in question?

2. Does the Commission believe that the proposal concerning access to EU documents as drawn up by a working party of senior Coreper officials undermines its own proposal, i.e. a code of conduct via the codecision procedure? If so, what action will the Commission take to ensure that its proposal is the official guideline for access to EU documents?

3. Does the Commission think the proposal by the Coreper officials is an infringement of the provision in the Treaty of Amsterdam on access to EU documents? If so, in what way will it challenge this infringement of the provisions of the Treaty?

Answer given by Romano Prodi on behalf of the Commission

(26 October 2000)

On 14 August 2000, the Council adopted Decision 2000/527/EC amending Decision 93/731/EC on public access to Council documents and Decision 2000/23/EC on the improvement of information on the Council's legislative activities and the public register of Council documents(1). As a result of the new Decision, documents classified as top secret, secret or confidential which relate to security and defence matters are excluded from the scope of the provisions on access to documents and are no longer included in the public register of Council documents.

Until this Decision was adopted, access to Council documents was governed by a joint code of conduct for the Council and Commission, which did not a priori preclude access to any document; however, one exception was access to documents whose disclosure could undermine the public interest and, in particular, public safety.

The proposal for a regulation adopted by the Commission on 26 January 2000(2) implementing Article 255 (ex Article 191a) of the EC Treaty does not exclude a priori from the scope of the regulation classified documents relating to defence issues but stipulates that the institutions should refuse access to any document whose disclosure could seriously undermine the public interest and, in particular, public safety and defence.

At the Coreper meeting of 26 July 2000, when the draft decision was approved, the Commission declared that it would undertake to examine its own provisions on public access to documents in order to ensure the same level of protection for ESDP documents. Where necessary, it would investigate the need for an amendment of its proposal for a regulation with regard to public access to documents produced by the Parliament, Council and Commission pursuant to Article 255(2) of the EC Treaty.

The Commission is currently exploring the possibility of follow-up measures to the Council Decision.

(1) OJ L 212, 23.8.2000.

(2) COM(2000) 30 final.