Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-10-08-Speech-3-149"
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"Mr President, I would like to thank the Honourable Members very much for their questions.
I could, of course, mention that I have made the register of my own correspondence directly accessible on the web, and I could mention other examples of what can be done proactively outside the formal legislation, such as improved registers, greater user-friendliness and accessibility, active dissemination and quicker publishing of documents. But all this is not our topic for discussion today. I am sure we will have other opportunities to discuss these important issues in depth.
Of course, as we have already heard, this Turco judgement by the Court of Justice is a very important one. The Commission fully agrees with the Court when it recalls the great importance of an open legislative process. Needless to say, we will respect this judgement and take it fully into account in our daily work.
I want to be as clear as possible, but I will have to be rather brief in my replies to your five specific questions. The first one concerns better lawmaking, our interinstitutional relations and Regulation 1049/2001. This Turco judgement concerns access to documents by the public. There is no direct link to our interinstitutional cooperation. For that we have our framework for enhanced interinstitutional cooperation, which I believe works very well. Our two institutions have a good track record of working together in the legislative process to meet the better lawmaking objective.
Regarding your second question on accessible information on current public consultations, I would like to start by mentioning the PreLex database, as we call it in our jargon. The aim behind this database is to facilitate access to pre-legislative documents through a single entry point. In practice, it is a portal containing links to key pre-legislative documents. This database is operated by the Official Publications Office and it is based on information supplied by the Commission. More importantly, it is directly accessible to the public on the Europa server.
Regarding public consultations launched by the Commission, there is also a single access point on the Europa server. That is your voice in Europe. This website facilitates access to consultations and provides general information on the Commission’s different consultation processes. It also gives comprehensive information on open public consultations and on related consultation documents and questionnaires. In addition, this access point also gives information on the follow-up, such as consultation reports and published contributions.
Regarding your third question about the TRANS-JAI project, I would simply like to assure you that full public access with dedicated servers – entitled ‘public go live’ – for the TRANS-JAI web portal is planned for March 2010.
This leads to your fourth question on the transparency principle and the principle of good administration. Of course these principles are closely interlinked. We are always committed to providing as much information as possible to the public. This is particularly the case for procedures which concern citizens and their rights and for the workings of the institutions, which we all know are sometimes not so easy to understand. The Commission’s website gives information on its organisation and procedures, and we have an easy-access ‘Who is who’ directory of the Commission staff and the different directorates-general.
Your last question, number 5, concentrates on the public register of documents and the Ombudsman’s draft recommendation in the ‘Statewatch’ complaint. A public register of documents has been up and running since 3 June 2002, as required by Regulation 1049/2001. Since then, the Commission has also put in place a dedicated register for comitology procedures and a register on expert groups. We are doing our utmost to modernise our internal IT systems but, as you know, unfortunately these things do not happen overnight. But one thing is clear. This is ongoing work. We always take into account the need to increase the coverage of this public register.
More specifically, on the Ombudsman’s draft recommendation in this case, the Commission has of course submitted a detailed opinion to him. In that opinion we acknowledge that we still have to increase the coverage of our public registers and we confirm our commitment to further develop our public registers in the interests of enhanced transparency. On one point we were unable to share the Ombudsman’s view. He concluded that the Commission should – and I quote – ‘include references to all the documents within the meaning of Article 3(a) in the register’. I can share the aim and the ambition of this conclusion, but unfortunately it is impossible to achieve. It is simply impossible to reconcile the wide and imprecise definition of ‘documents’ in Article 3(a) of Regulation 1049/2001 with one single, fully comprehensive public register. Instead we have to provide the links or make different entry points."@en1
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