Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-05-03-Speech-4-086"
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"en.20010503.5.4-086"2
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"At the International Journalists’ Day on 3 May, the European Parliament is approving rules that will close off access to a large number of documents from the EU. The GUE/NGL Group dissociates itself from the result of the closed negotiations and we have today voted against the compromise between the European Parliament’s two biggest political groups, the Council and the Commission.
The rules concerning openness in the EU were negotiated behind hermetically sealed doors, and the result unfortunately shows that the institutions of the EU consider citizens to be opponents rather than fellow-players. The rules concerning which documents can be excluded from public access are so unclear that it will not be difficult to keep secret almost any document at all.
Internal documents are not defined and are to be kept secret if their publication would have a decisive influence on a decision-making process. Member States may demand that documents be classified and, into the bargain, require that they not be recorded, without it being made clear which rules this is to take place under. Documents concerning the EU’s foreign, defence and security policy can be kept entirely out of the public domain and documents concerning internal security can similarly be kept secret. The rules will be of consequence in all the Member States, with national opportunities to create greater openness in the political process of the Member States now being subject to the Union’s common rules.
Public debate on the matter has been virtually non-existent, and the closed process under which the rules came about has hardly helped the project to move the Union closer to its citizens. The result gives the impression that the rapporteurs have hidden under the cloak of the Swedish Presidency in the hope that openness and the interests of public access to official records were covered by virtue of the Swedes’ long tradition of open government. However, it is obvious that the Swedes decided on a course of appeasement that has secured consensus in the Council rather than safeguarding citizens’ interests. In other words, the Swedes have helped legitimise the Regulation rather than defending citizens’ interests, and today the European Parliament has followed suit.
The Commission and the Council can sit back with satisfaction, and the European Parliament has negotiated on the basis of its own interest in achieving access to a range of confidential documents without guaranteeing that a single document will be delivered. This cannot be said to be in the public interest, and it is now clear that the public has been held hostage in a struggle concerning the European Parliament’s own interests in which the European Parliament, in the end, decided to sacrifice the hostage."@en1
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