huridocs-tech NGOs Call Proposal on Access to Information Overly Restrictive

Title: RIGHTS-EU: NGOs Call Proposal on Access to
Information Overly Restrictive

By Brian Kenety,

BRUSSELS Jan 27 (IPS)  Human rights groups and other non-
governmental organisations (NGOs) are challenging draft
regulations on public access to European Union documentation
Which, they say, could undermine civil society's access to
information and ability to influence decisions.

The regulations " will reduce transparency of the Commission
and create a wall around the Commission's services during
the entire process of preparation of its political and
legislative proposalsö, John Hontelez, Secretary-General of
the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), said  Thursday.

Magda Stoczkiewicz, EU Coordinator for  Bankwatch Network,
said that the proposals  ôseem to be very dangerousö
especially for European Union candidates from central and
eastern Europe ôwhere democracy is so young."

These countries were looking to Europe for guidance in
crafting and harmonising their own legislation and setting
standards for transparency, she said.

The Treaty of Amsterdam, which came into force last May, was
meant to herald a new era of citizens' rights and influence
in the EU and integrate the 15-member states into a more
democratic and transparent union that would "strengthen
citizens rights, respond more effectively to their
aspirations".

The draft, prepared by the European Commission, was intended
to give effect to that principle, but critics said it could
have the opposite  effect.

The NGOs argued that the regulations would permanently
exclude working documents from the right to access; thus
excluding civil society from playing a part in the crafting
of legislation.

Furthermore, Hontelez said it was a clear violation of the
Aarhus Convention on Access to Information and Public
Participation in Decision- Making and Access to Justice,
signed by the Commission in June 1998.

The EEB and other environmental groups, including Friends of
the Earth-Europe and the World Wide Fund for Nature-EU
Policy Office, said in a joint statement that they were
"very disappointed" that the Commission did not include a
discussion of the draft regulation in an ongoing
consultation process between the Commission and NGOs.

"So, while promoting partnership and openness, (the
Commission) is, at  the same, time preparing a draft
regulation which goes right in the opposite direction," they
said.

The text of the Commission's proposal will apply to all
documents held by these institutions, whether the documents
are produced by them or received from third parties, unless
specifically requested to withhold them.

Documents intended for discussion, internal administrative
notices and informal messages are excluded from this rule.

According to a statement by the Commission, the institutions
"have considerable experience where granting public access
to their documents is concerned, in particular through the
operation of codes on access to documents which they have
adopted in the course of the past decade."

The Commission, for example, said it has been able to grant
public access to documents upon request in 90 percent of
cases to date.

Statewatch, which monitors civil liberties in the EU, said
that under the Commission's proposal, more than half the
documents would be "automatically excluded" from access.

The draft legislation includes a number of exceptions to the
right of access to documents, based on so-called "harm
tests".

The draft says  access "will be granted unless disclosure
might significantly undermine (the protection of) certain
specific interests", including broad terms such as "the
public interest" and "the deliberations and effective
functioning of the institutions", but also "privacy and the
individual".

Renata Schröeder of the  European Federation of Journalists
said the proposal was flawed as it includes no provision to
protect "whistle-blowers" - persons working within the EU
who would release information in order to expose problems.

Furthermore, said Schröeder, European civil servants need to
change their attitude: "Journalists still feel that when we
get a document right away it is a favour".

The Commission said the proposals have been based on an
assessment of the best practice in EU member states, as well
as its own experience in applying an internal code of access
to documents, in operation since 1994.

However a group of Nordic MEPs, whose countries are widely
held to have  the most liberal access to information laws,
said the Commission's proposal "is a clear disappointment"
and would "obstruct the realisation of the spirit" of the
Treaty of Amsterdam.

"According to the Commission proposal, the access to
documents would not concern internal documents, at any
stage. Plans and working documents are important to the
democratic process and should be made public after a certain
time," said a statement by Denmark's Bertel Haarder,
(European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party) and Astrid
Thors (Swedish People's Party, Finland)
(END/IPS/HD/bk/cr/00)




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