Posted on 04/13/2012 7:53:44 AM PDT by Olog-hai
Most member states and EU institutions are keen to draw a new veil of secrecy over how they appoint top officials and enforce EU law.
The rights of journalists, NGOs and average people to get access to internal EU documents is currently governed by a regulation from 2001.
It is already hard to gain access because there is no simple registry of which documents exist and because it can take long legal battles to make institutions drop their objections—for instance, on grounds that it would violate people's privacy, threaten national security or that there is no "overriding public interest" to publish sensitive information. …
The EU Council, the European Commission and most countries are also keen to exclude documents relating to appointments of top officials and judges and to introduce "special protection" for papers on competition cases, EU court proceedings, infringement proceedings and legal advice given by EU institutions to their own policymakers. …
The pro-secrecy trend comes at a time when EU bodies are getting important new powers on oversight of national budgets.
For her part, Anais Berthier, a ClientEarth lawyer, said it also goes against the Lisbon Treaty, which declares in its opening words it wants "an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe, in which decisions are taken as openly as possible."
"Confidentiality creates suspicion—if the process was more transparent, it would make the decisions more legitimate and people would adhere more closely to the Union. But the council and the commission clearly want the least possible public participation," she noted. …
(Excerpt) Read more at euobserver.com ...
...cause they remember what happened to Mussolini
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.