Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-01-13-Speech-2-250"
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"en.20090113.26.2-250"2
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"Mr President, in a democracy, transparency is a concept of honour. In democratic countries, the citizens elect the governing authorities. These authorities appoint officials to implement democratic decisions. It would therefore be absurd for these elected representatives and appointed officials to be entitled to withhold information from their electorate. The fact that this happens nevertheless has two explanations. The first is a legacy from a pre-democratic society where the people were seen as subjects under non-elected rulers. The subjects were not permitted to interfere in the ruler’s affairs. The second is that the nation’s security, consideration of citizens’ integrity, business secrets, market influence and similar considerations may require exceptions to transparency.
The first explanation is completely irrelevant today. The authorities must not, in their capacity as authorities, withhold information from the people. The second explanation, however, is sound and involves a difficult balancing act. These legitimate demands for finding the right balance are, unfortunately, often used by the authorities to preserve the option of secretiveness.
The EU does not have a proud tradition of transparency. In its childhood and early youth, the EU was almost totally secret, even down to the Commission’s internal telephone directory. The EU began as a mandarin empire, and still is today, but important steps have been taken: the 1993 Code of Conduct, the acceptance of the Swedish Journalists’ Association’s demands in 1998, and the Regulation in 2001.
It is with a certain amount of pride that I note that my own country, Sweden, has the longest historical tradition of statutory transparency. That was why the Swedish state became involved in the Turco case and got the European Court of Justice to override the Council and the Court of First Instance last summer. This was yet another step away from the mandarin empire, but the road to establishing democratic transparency in the EU is a long one. There is a lot of internal resistance to quash. Mr Cappato’s report should therefore receive the full support of this House, which would be yet another step forward along that long road."@en1
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