Posted on 06/13/2012 3:59:40 PM PDT by Olog-hai
The Danish presidency has abandoned attempts to agree to new rules on access to EU documents.
It took the decision on Tuesday (12 June) after EU countries and the European Commission last week rejected its latest draft of the law.
It still wants MEPs to back a commission proposal to extend existing rules on freedom of information to all EU institutions—including its 31 agencies—however.
The existing rules go back to 2001. Pro-transparency advocates say they allow too much secrecy. EU officials say they waste time by ambiguity on what is open or not.
A big sticking point in the draft new law was access to legal opinions written by EU lawyers for their own policymakers.
Article 4.3b of the last Danish proposal said legal opinions should be made public unless it "would seriously undermine the institution's decision-making process" and if "there is an overriding public interest in disclosure."
MEPs and NGOs such as ClientEarth and AccessInfo believe people should be able to read them for the sake of democratic oversight. …
A commission spokesman said last week that "nutty NGOs" abuse the system and that "the debate is infantile … some people need to grow up." …
(Excerpt) Read more at euobserver.com ...
Thanks Olog-hai.
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