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Procedure : 2004/2125(INL)
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Texts tabled :

A6-0052/2006

Debates :

PV 03/04/2006 - 12
CRE 03/04/2006 - 12

Votes :

PV 04/04/2006 - 8.7
Explanations of votes

Texts adopted :

P6_TA(2006)0122

Verbatim report of proceedings
Monday, 3 April 2006 - Strasbourg OJ edition

12. Openness of meetings of the Council when acting in its legislative capacity - Access to the institutions documents - (debate)
Minutes
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  President. The next item is the joint debate on:

- the report (A6-0056/2006) by Mr Hammerstein Mintz, on behalf of the Committee on Petitions, on the Special Report from the European Ombudsman to the European Parliament following the draft recommendation to the Council of the European Union in complaint 2395/2003/GG, on the openness of the meetings of the Council when acting in its legislative capacity [2005/2243(INI), and

- the report (A6-0052/2006) by Mr Cashman, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, with recommendations to the Commission on access to the institutions’ documents (2004/2125(INI).

 
  
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  David Hammerstein Mintz (Verts/ALE), rapporteur. (ES) Mr President, I would like firstly to thank the Austrian Presidency for its cooperation on this issue, and I would like in particular to thank Commissioner Wallström, who has shown considerable enthusiasm and commitment with regard to transparency and how to promote it.

I would also like to mention Mr Cashman’s initiative on the regulation of public access to the institutions’ texts, a report that is parallel to this one but which moves in the same direction.

The Council currently has a credibility problem. On the one hand, the political leaders of the Member States support Article 1.2 of the Treaty on European Union, and they have signed the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, which states that the Council’s decisions must be taken as transparently, as openly, and as close to the citizens as possible.

The reality is very different, however. The Council refuses to open up its legislative meetings to public and media scrutiny. The European Ombudsman is right to say that we are dealing with a case of maladministration, concluding that the Council has not given a significant valid reason not to open up the doors to its discussions.

In order to increase the ordinary citizens’ interest in and commitment to the European Union, and in view of the current constitutional crisis, Europe needs to take courageous and imaginative steps to bring European issues closer to everyone. It must start by opening up its doors to public debate; the Council does not want to do so, however. If millions of Europeans were able to watch the ministers on the television openly discussing European issues such as the energy crisis, the services Directive, the retention of personal data or stem cell research, we could awaken much more interest in European issues and we could put an end to the lethargy of millions of Europeans who show very little interest in European affairs. Public opinion is caught up in strictly national debates.

This report adopted by the Committee on Petitions fully supports the recommendation of the European Ombudsman, who has taken the view that the principle of transparency should be applied not just to the discussions of the Council, but to all cases in which the European Parliament is involved, including consultations and issues relating to individual rights and freedoms and those included in the third pillar.

In October, the European Ombudsman published a report calling upon the Council to review its refusal to meet publicly when taking decisions of a legislative nature. To this end, the Ombudsman asked the Council to change its Rules of Procedure, in order to guarantee access for the media and public opinion to its debates. Nevertheless, and despite the recommendation of the British Presidency, the Council has not taken any steps to change its Rules of Procedure in a manner that promotes transparency.

The leaders of the Member States can therefore carry on saying the opposite in Brussels to what they are saying to their voters at home. The implications of this openness that we want to see could be profound for the Council and would change its nature. The ministers would have to speak under the scrutiny of the media and under the gaze of millions of people. This would be the best way to make European democracy visible and to awaken ourselves from the current lethargy and boredom.

The Council could begin with a pilot programme, which would explain how decisions are made and the nature of the procedure to millions of people in front of the television cameras. I would like to put the following question to the Presidency-in-Office of the Council and the Commission: are you prepared to propose concrete initiatives to make transparent and open debates and decision-making in the Council possible? If not now, then when?

The citizens and the European Parliament are asking the Council to come out into the open. The ball is in the Council’s court. Please open up your doors. We Europeans want to participate.

 
  
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  Michael Cashman (PSE), rapporteur. Mr President, I would like to associate myself wholeheartedly with the statement by my friend Mr Hammerstein Mintz. I was the original rapporteur on Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 on public access to documents and I well remember the heated debates, not only within Parliament but within the Council and within the trialogue, as we set out to win the arguments for what was at that time a groundbreaking regulation. I remember – and it is worth naming some of the old EU-15 – the vehement opposition from France, Spain, Italy, Germany and Austria. I am pleased to say that the Austrian Presidency has now changed its attitude, but I mention this because it shows what a long way we have come.

There are different approaches to openness and transparency. We have the wonderful Nordic example, and then we have the rather suspicious view taken in other Member States, but arguably we have nothing whatsoever to fear from transparency. What is there to fear from opening our decisions to external examination? What does a Member State have to fear from explaining to its own parliament why the minister voted as he or she did?

I make several recommendations in my report and I call upon the Commission to take action. We recognise that Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 was not the end of the game but merely the beginning of a long – arguably cultural – journey to win the argument for openness and transparency within the three institutions. We come from different traditions. That is why I have called for a further review of the regulation. This review was provided for in the original recommendation and there are several areas concerning the regulation’s implementation which now, several years later, could be substantially improved on the basis of the lessons that we have learned from its implementation.

We need to look again at the definitions of legislative and non-legislative texts in relation to public access to documents, in order to ensure that all the institutions are working in an open and transparent manner. Access to documents is not a gift – it is a right. This is especially important when Parliament and the Council are working in a legislative capacity. Increased interinstitutional cooperation and increased use of the codecision procedure necessitate greater openness by the Council in particular. Citizens must be able to see what is being agreed in their names by national ministers of national governments so that they and opposition parties can hold them to account.

We need to look at the way we define the circumstances in which specific documents can be classified completely, or in part, as confidential. These rules should provide legitimate derogations for specific clearly-defined reasons, but should not be interpreted in a broad sense, which would essentially have the result of denying public access to documents.

Here is the point on which I shall finish: we won the argument from 1999 until May 2001 when the regulation was adopted. Time and time again we have won the argument for a review of the internal rules of the institutions so that the Council in particular, when meeting in its legislative capacity, should meet in public and vote in public. The arguments have been won. I know the Vice-President is personally committed to the whole notion of openness and transparency. The House is committed, but that is not enough. We have a wonderful window of opportunity on 9 May, Europe Day. Let us make Europe Day a positive day when we can announce how we will improve the citizens’ right to know what is done in their name.

Finally, there is a rise of anti-Europeanism, not least in the ten new countries that joined us two years ago. Often governments which bring a country into the family of the European Union suffer as a result; they are not re-elected. We would be a friend of anti-Europeanism if we continue to cloak what we do in secrecy. Let us take on the anti-Europeans. Let us promote our institutions. Let us celebrate what we do. Let us bring forward that review of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001, not reluctantly but with enthusiasm.

 
  
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  Margot Wallström, Vice-President of the Commission. (SV) Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating the European Parliament and, of course, the rapporteurs, Mr Mintz and Mr Cashman, for two very important reports. If I may begin by commenting on openness in the Council, the Commission fully supports open meetings of the Council. As early as October, we stated, in plan D, that the Council should be open when it legislates, and we support the initiatives taken by the Council.

I am convinced that open meetings of the Council would increase the EU’s credibility, as well as people’s interest in the EU. I know that, in terms of principle, there is a consensus between our institutions on this issue, and it is now the Member States that must take action and deliver results. I also believe that it would be an effective way of putting an end to what we call the ‘blame game’, so this is an important issue.

Openness also has to do with public access to documents and with Regulation 1049/2001. Formally, this legislation applies only to Parliament, the Council and the Commission, but it has, for all that, come to apply to many more bodies. The EU’s various offices and agencies – indeed, most of its bodies – have voluntarily adopted corresponding rules concerning access to documents. Just as the rapporteur, Mr Cashman said, the EU institutions have in this way – and thanks in no small measure, then, to the European Parliament – achieved in a remarkably short period of time a level of openness that is very good indeed compared with that to be found in many Member States.

That is not to say that matters cannot be improved. They can and must be. In 2003, the Commission carried out an investigation into the ways in which the regulation had been introduced in the first few years. In 2004 we published our evaluation report. By then the regulation had only been in force for less than two years, but it had operated well, and there was no immediate need to revise it or any legal obligation to do so, either. That was why the Commission thought it better to wait for the Constitutional Treaty to be ratified before we did anything further. The Constitution requires new legislation in this area.

The fact is, we all know how matters stand with the Constitutional Treaty. Meanwhile, the European Court of Justice has also produced several proposals for introducing rules governing access to documents. The Commission thought that this was now an appropriate moment at which to begin overhauling the regulation, and the decision to do this is part of the broad European transparency initiative, which we in the Commission decided on in November of last year.

Mr Cashman’s report is therefore extremely timely, given that we are in the throes of looking to see how we can improve the rules governing public access to documents. The Commission – including, I can promise you, myself personally – will be looking extremely carefully at the report’s recommendations.

One of the conclusions drawn by the Commission in its evaluation report of January 2004 was that the regulation had primarily been used by EU professionals, lobbyists, consultants and law firms, rather than by the general public. That is something we want to change, and we must do much more to reach out to people. What, in the first place, we are concerned with here is, of course, public access to documents or the public’s right to keep itself informed, and that is a further argument in support of our wanting to see a general consultation take place before we change the legislation. The Commission intends to hold such a consultation between July and October of this year. We shall then put forward a practical proposal at the end of this year or at the beginning of next year.

Without going into the details of the report’s various recommendations, I should simply like to clarify matters in a number of ways. Recommendation 2 talks about increased openness in the legislative procedure and of a clearer dividing line between legislative and administrative documents. The proposal is a very interesting one, at which we shall look closely. The same recommendation also relates to the Official Journal and electronic publication thereof. Our institutions had jointly decided to look at this issue back in 2004, and the Publications Office has already issued a report on the future of the Official Journal.

Recommendation 3 talks about documents classified as confidential. In this area, we must be careful not to confuse different things. Confidentiality does not in itself lead to a general exception to the rule whereby people have the right of access to documents. A refusal to issue a document classified as confidential must be justified in precisely the same way as a refusal to make any other document available. The procedure is the same, and the institution’s obligations are the same. The same recommendation also discusses the issue of the European Parliament’s access to information classified as confidential. Here too we are in danger of confusing matters. Parliament’s rights in this area are controlled not by the regulation but by Annex 1 to the framework agreement between our institutions. In our experience, the framework agreement operates well.

I think that recommendation 5 contains quite a few extremely interesting and useful proposals concerning more user-friendly registers and databases. They are proposals requiring no legislation, as they deal with practical details and measures. The interinstitutional committee appointed through the regulation in question last met in November 2005 and decided to appoint a working party to look at those issues, so a solution may be nearer than we think.

To conclude, the Commission is very committed to the issue of public access to documents. We have embarked on an overhaul of the regulation, and we have begun to take a closer look at many of the issues discussed in the report. We hope that the European Parliament will continue to help matters along and we expect great things of the general consultation we shall be carrying out between July and October. Public access to documents is about scrutiny and credibility and, when it comes down to it, democracy. It is therefore important for us to continue to cooperate constructively and for us to listen to the general public.

(Applause)

 
  
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  Andreas Schwab, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group. – (DE) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by saying, on behalf of the members of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats on the Committee on Petitions how grateful we are to Mr Hammerstein Mintz, the rapporteur, and also to Mr Cashman, for the work they have done and for the reports that have resulted from it. They are indeed making a considerable contribution to putting beyond all doubt this House’s willingness to make Europe more transparent.

If you do not mind, I would like, briefly, to say something about the Hammerstein Mintz report’s pre-history. It so happened that we were discussing with our friends in the German Young Christian Democrats just how it can happen that we so often get reports in the national media about certain decisions for which the European institutions are then blamed, even though the Council – which is very visibly present this evening – had an equal hand in taking them. This, combined with the Convention, gave us the idea of approaching, through Mr Brok, the European Ombudsman in an attempt to find out what the position was on this under the European laws that the Council had played a part in adopting.

It is of course, only natural that those who talk a lot about closeness to the public and about the need for the EU to become more democratic, should play an active part in making this a reality. To do so would be to do a great service not only to the esteem in which Europe is held, but also, in this specific instance, to the prestige of the Council and of the European Union as a whole.

Despite the individual issues that Mr Cashman and Mr Hammerstein Mintz have addressed, there is less of a need for action on the transparency and openness front in the Commission and in this House, but certainly a good deal more remains to be done within the Council of Ministers. The way the Council functions does, of course, make this more difficult to some degree, since there are various things that are not as stable as they are in Parliament or in the Commission, but I do nevertheless believe that, in a debate such as this one – without wanting to offend the Austrian Presidency – one ought to be able to expect a much more serious approach to be taken to this. There is no doubt about the fact that not all the information that people might like to have can be made available to them, but the fundamentals of transparency should nonetheless apply. Perhaps, Commissioner, you could pass that message on to your colleagues.

 
  
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  Michael Cashman, on behalf of the PSE Group. Mr President, I shall not detain the House by taking up two valuable minutes but would like to commend to the House the very valuable work of Mr Hammerstein Mintz. He has worked very closely with all of us, and on behalf of the PSE Group I would like to say that he has the full support of my group.

If you would allow me, I failed to thank my good colleague Mrs Cederschiöld with whom I worked very closely, as with others, on my report, and I thank the House for its patience.

 
  
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  Chris Davies, on behalf of the ALDE Group. Mr President, there is widespread public suspicion of the European decision-making process, and no wonder when ministers meet to make laws behind closed doors. It does not have to be like that. We may never make the European Union perfect, but we can at least make it better. The Ombudsman has given us great moral authority and has added moral authority to the cross-party campaign that exists in this House, which has commanded an astonishing degree of support. In the case of my own country, it has managed to get pro-European Liberals and anti-European United Kingdom Independence Party members united on a platform together in common cause – a unique event.

There is a simple principle behind this: laws should be made in the open. Ministers should voice their opinions, do so honestly and do so in public, so that citizens can know what they are doing and national parliaments can hold them to account.

In signing the Constitutional Treaty, every Head of Government committed himself to that principle: the Council should meet in public when debating legislative acts. But it does not require Treaty change, it just requires an alteration in the Council’s rules of procedure: not even one of 25 votes, just 13 votes – a simple majority – can bring about that quite fundamental change and the introduction of that principle.

The British Presidency came out with some warm words but, at the end of the day, fudged it.

(Interjection from Mr Cashman: No!)

Well, they have not changed the rules of procedure, Michael, that is the reality.

The Austrian Presidency now has the opportunity to make the difference. When I put the question to the Austrian Foreign Minister in January, she said: well, we will do what we can, but we are conscious of the delicacy of the matter. Why is it delicate? This is about openness and transparency, a fundamental European principle to which every Head of Government has committed himself.

I look forward to the Austrian Presidency taking the initiative now and putting it to a vote. If the reality is that some Member States – France for example – which are behind the scenes trying to block this initiative, then let them be named and shamed and let them answer to their people and to the people of Europe.

(Applause)

 
  
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  Johannes Voggenhuber, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – (DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, what is democracy? Whatever the answers to that question that have emerged over centuries of European history, there is not one single one of them in which public access to the legislative process is not described as one of its foundational principles and as something without which it does not exist. The Council of the European Union is making so bold as to treat a fundamental principle with contempt; it has the sheer nerve to say that that is its own business, its own policy decision, and, with unparalleled cynicism, to reject the openness and transparency required by the Treaty, by claiming that this requirement for transparency applies to a future Union.

The European Parliament cannot do other than find that intolerable. This report touches upon the innermost heart of the crisis of public confidence in Europe. The more I concern myself with this abuse – and I was successful in getting it made one of the main items on the Convention’s order of business – the more it appears to me that the Council is the black hole in democracy, that it is the democratic deficit.

This House should do everything in its power to prevent this from becoming a token exercise for the sake of our tender consciences. We are the directly-elected representatives of the European citizens, and we have to make this our business. Grateful though I am for this report, what I propose goes well beyond it: we in this House, as the representatives of the European citizens, should present the Council with an ultimatum, with the end of this year as the deadline. If the Council does not, by then, comply with this fundamental principle of democracy by amending its rules of procedure and conducting its legislative business in public, this House should reject all those of its proposals for legislation that have not been discussed and adopted in public.

 
  
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  Erik Meijer, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group. (NL) Mr President, whilst the Commission and Parliament probably draw most attention in the European Union, in the final analysis, it is the Council that wields most power. That is where the vetoes are held and where there is scope for deferral for what the Commission and Parliament have decided. It is there that the governments of the Member States do their bartering, where intransparent business interests are protected and where everything is shrouded in much secrecy. The proposed Constitution that was rejected last year by the French and Dutch electorate would have done nothing to change the Council’s powerful role as government and senate rolled into one.

One of the Union’s main democratic shortfalls is the fact that the Council meets behind closed doors. In practice, this makes it impossible for Members of this House or of the national parliaments to be certain that the ministers of their Member States have voted as they said they would. A case in point is the vote on the software patents a year ago, where either the Dutch or the Danish minister had lied to their parliaments about their own voting behaviour. This renders democratic control over decision-making impossible. We should not wait for a constitution to throw open Council meetings – not just legislative, but all meetings – to the public. Further delay will amount to the deliberate undermining of parliamentary democracy.

 
  
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  Marcin Libicki, on behalf of the UEN Group.(PL) It gives me real pleasure to be addressing the meeting today, because we are talking about two documents prepared by Parliament, by Members of this Parliament, by an outstanding member of the Committee on Petitions which I chair, Mr Hammerstein Mintz, and because we are also discussing a report prepared by Mr Cashman on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs – he is Vice-Chairman of the Committee on Petitions and an outstanding member of it.

One of the starting points of the discussion is the report of the European Ombudsman, Professor Diamandouros, on the openness of the Council’s work. The work of Professor Diamandouros, our European Ombudsman, is also closely associated with our Committee. In addressing you on behalf of the Union for Europe of the Nations Group, but also as Chairman of the Committee on Petitions, I am especially pleased to be able to speak of those three extremely well prepared documents and I would like to congratulate their authors, Mr Hammerstein Mintz and Mr Michael Cashman, on their excellent work.

We have been speaking of openness today. Sometimes you hear it said, though we have not heard such views today, that not everything needs to be open, that there are negotiations, discussions, preparations. Indeed, we agree with this. These negotiations, discussions and preparations need to take place behind the scenes. We are not demanding the sort of openness that would enable us to eavesdrop on what ministers discuss with colleagues in their offices, or ahead of Council meetings. Once the Council begins its debates, however, we want to know what it is debating and who represents what point of view.

There are at least three reasons for demanding such openness. The first reason is simply that we have a right to the truth, and therefore we want to know what the truth is. Secondly, we have a right of oversight. We have a right of oversight as individual Members of the European Parliament and as the European Parliament as a body, and we also have a right of oversight as members and as citizens of the European Union. In addition, our colleagues, the Members of Parliament of the Member States whose ministers speak in the Council, also have a right to know. In other words, both European and national public opinion have a right to know what takes place in the Council.

There is also an issue which is especially close to the heart of the Committee on Petitions, and that is bringing European institutions closer to the citizen. If we say that there is a crisis of confidence in European institutions, it is this openness of debates which should overcome this crisis. In other words, we want there to be confidence in Europe, we want the confidence towards which, I am very pleased to say, the Committee on Petitions and its two outstanding members, the authors of these reports, are working.

 
  
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  Jens-Peter Bonde, on behalf of the IND/DEM Group. (DA) Mr President, there is a very simple method of implementing openness in the EU: reverse the procedure so that there is open access to all meetings and documents, unless the opposite is decided. That is the way things are here in the European Parliament, and it is something from which the other institutions can learn. Our committee meetings for the purpose of preparing legislation are open. Why cannot the corresponding deliberations in the Council’s 300 half-secret working parties be opened? Our use of experts is a public matter. Why will the Commission not say who are involved in the 3 000 secret working parties?

The proposal to reverse the procedure received 200 of a possible 220 signatures in the Convention. No other proposals gathered so much support: all the elected representatives in the national parliaments, all but one of the Members of the European Parliament and 23 out of 28 governments. The proposal does not even require a change to the Treaty. It can be implemented by means of a simple change to the Rules of Procedure. Both the Commission and the Council can adopt the proposal by a simple majority: 13 out of 25 Commissioners and 13 out of the 25 countries in the Council. Come on now, Mr Barroso and Mr Schüssel, get matters under way so that people might feel respect for the necessary cross-border cooperation.

 
  
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  Charlotte Cederschiöld (PPE-DE). – (SV) Mr President, firstly, I should like sincerely to thank Mr Cashman for his constructive cooperation over the years in the cause of increased openness. The European Parliament has always been the driving force, but I must, in all honesty, also acknowledge that the Commission and the Council have also contributed lately to the really quite huge increase in quality that we have seen over the last five years. We now have a legislative procedure in the EU that, in certain respects, is much more open than that of most national parliaments, my own included.

The purpose of this overhaul is to produce the same rules for all three institutions. I of course hope that, in the long term, the process will rub off on the national bodies. The regulations must be designed in such a way that they can be embraced by the majority of institutions in both the EU and the Member States. Parliament is taking this initiative on openness in order to increase democratic control and produce clarifications when legislation is unclear. The minutes of meetings of the Council must be published when the Council acts in its legislative capacity, which does not mean that details of all the Coreper meetings have to be made public.

Just as in the conciliation process, some scope for negotiation should be guaranteed. Openness should, of course, be applied, however, when decisions on the actual legislation are actually taken. To give the general public access to legal opinions as a matter of course would be to restrict the scope for political action. Either that, or the opinions would be of lower quality. The alternative would be opinions of reduced quality. Parliamentarians involved in a particular issue should, however, be allowed in certain instances to study the legal opinions, once they have undertaken in writing to observe the confidentiality that applies to everyone else who has had a part to play in the matter.

Clear and robust data protection is a basic condition of increased openness. The rights concerned - openness and data protection - complement and reinforce each other. Information given out in confidence must be respected. Nor must we have any retroactive measures in this area. I am convinced that, once the Commission has completed its work, we shall have a fair and balanced proposal. I have every confidence in Mrs Wallström. There must be further development of the way in which people are given access to documents, and the Council must show respect for people and for the democratic process. A lot remains to be done in this area.

(Applause from various quarters)

 
  
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  Alexandra Dobolyi (PSE). – (HU) I thank Commissioner for being a committed supporter, together with the European Parliament, of making Council meetings public. I can only repeat what was said by those who spoke before me, because everybody talked about the same issue: parliamentary legislation is a fundamental principle of modern democracy, invested with legislative and executive powers. Although there are certain parliamentary chambers in Member States of the European Union – such as the British House of Lords – which are not elected directly by citizens, at Member State level these chambers, too, make their decisions publicly.

Unfortunately, the Council is an exception to this fundamental principle. Within the democratic system of the European Union, this is the only legislative body in the world that legislates behind closed doors. The exclusion of the public and the secrecy do not increase at all the credibility of the European Union. When a particularly important, controversial issue is being discussed, the debate between Member States would be more transparent and more understandable to everybody if the Council conducted the legislative debate in public, during one of the earlier stages of the process. Therefore, I particularly welcome the excellent report of Mr David Hammerstein, the proposals of Mr Michael Cashman and the report of the European Ombudsman in this matter, and I would like to thank them for their work. I would like to remind everybody of the fact that in accordance with the first article of the Treaty on European Union, decisions must be taken as publicly as possible, bringing the European Union even closer to the citizens.

 
  
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  Anneli Jäätteenmäki (ALDE). – (FI) Mr President, according to the EU Treaties, decisions must be taken as openly as possible and as closely as possible to the people. Neither of these principles is being implemented in practice, and that certainly does no credit to the EU. It is not acceptable that the EU’s most important law-making body, the Council, still meets behind closed doors when acting as a legislator. I can just imagine what would happen if the national parliament of a Member State closed its doors when starting to make laws – the parliament would be bound to disapprove of that. In the EU, however, it is still possible to make laws undemocratically.

Greater transparency would make it easier to monitor the European Parliament, and the national parliaments too, and would greatly improve public debate on questions relating to the EU. Today it is very difficult for national parliaments and the public to follow and monitor the decisions made by their own ministers in the Council. This really is no longer acceptable: one part of democracy is transparency.

At present in the EU, people are saying that the Constitutional Treaty should be ratified quickly. I in fact regard it as a lot more important for the EU to promote transparency and for all the EU institutions to do their utmost concerning this, and first and foremost, obviously, the Council. This way, this black hole in democracy could be filled and transparency would be a fact of life in legislation at EU level.

 
  
  

IN THE CHAIR: MR MAURO
Vice-President

 
  
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  Carl Schlyter (Verts/ALE). – (SV) Mr President, I would thank the rapporteurs for their constructive work. I like Mr Voggenhuber’s proposal that we refuse to be accessories to an undemocratic piece of decision-making. Where is the Council? Do they have problems keeping awake so late in the day? It is because they lock themselves in their rooms. If they were to open these up, they would obtain enough oxygen to last them until the evening so that they might take part in these debates too. Why do they not open their doors? Do not politicians welcome any chance to appear on television? Why, I wonder, is the Council passing up the opportunity to do so? Like the entire population of Europe, I wonder what they are doing. There is an easy way of remedying the situation: open the doors so that we can see what is happening. I am relying on Mrs Wallström to lead the EU into the twenty-first century and wake the Council from its twentieth century sleep. I feel it is important for us to remind the Council that, if they do now open up their meetings, it must not be in order to get together formally for just an hour and then to take a four-hour working lunch, in which case openness would become a chimera. We are also relying on the Council to eat quickly and to take their decisions openly and over an extended period.

 
  
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  Carlos Coelho (PPE-DE).(PT) Mrs Wallström, ladies and gentlemen, we believe that the right of access to documents is one of the most important rights enjoyed by Europe’s citizens.

The EU has made an increasing number of documents available to the public. There have been a number of problems, however, particularly in relation to the inadequate implementation of Regulation (EC) No 1049/01. Accordingly, Parliament has, rightly, repeatedly stressed the need for a review of this regulation, with a view to improving it and strengthening EU legislation in the area of transparency.

We have done so because it is crucial to stress the idea of the citizens belonging to and identifying with the European project. For this to happen, there must be a decision-making process based on transparent, open negotiations, and proper cooperation between the institutions, without any unwanted secretiveness. This amended regulation must also form the legal basis for establishing rules, good practices and inter-institutional agreements designed to improve the drafting of legislative texts and to ensure that final legislative texts are accessible.

I wholeheartedly agree with Mr Cashman, who has once again done an excellent job, when he says that the fact that Parliament does not have a clear legal basis for access to classified EU information runs counter to the democratic principle on which the Union is based.

It is also regrettable that the institutions do not have a shared approach on how to manage, share and store various kinds of document. Improvements have undoubtedly been made, but there is still no great coordination between the institutions, especially as regards documents relating to interinstitutional processes. There should also be clear rules on access to administrative documents.

I shall conclude, Mr President, by turning to an issue that especially affects me as chairman of the temporary committee analysing the CIA flights. I wish to express my regret at the omission of the issue of access to documents that the Member States classify and make available to the Council.

 
  
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  Roger Knapman (IND/DEM). – Mr President, the UK Independence Party is probably going to be helpful for the first time ever, so it is nice to be able to make my one-minute speech. We have repeatedly condemned the Council for its lack of transparency. The remedy is very simple: to change the Council’s rules of procedure, as Mr Hammerstein Mintz makes clear in his report. Such a move would certainly ensure that in future the British people could see when British ministers renege on what they have pledged before entering such meetings.

But that is not enough. The Commission will remain as the unelected government of the EU, formulating and dictating laws without any democratic mandate whatsoever. Meanwhile, this Parliament continues farcically pushing through vote after vote on dubious shows of hands. Above all, France and Holland’s democratic rejections of the failed EU Constitution are viewed with complete contempt by the Council, Commission and Parliament alike. So let us stop lecturing the rest of the world on democracy. Throw open the Council’s doors, and the Commission’s too.

 
  
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  Inés Ayala Sender (PSE). – (ES) Mr President, I warmly congratulate Mr Hammerstein and the Commissioner on their efforts finally to democratise the meetings of the Council, to open up the doors of meetings in which legislation is passed without the citizens being provided with all the necessary information.

I must point out that, in my country, Spain, which voted in favour of the European Constitution, that was one of the arguments most accepted by the citizens: the possibility of democratising the meetings of the Council and assessing all of that information.

I therefore support the rapporteur’s proposals, particularly with regard to the publication of all of this information, including everything relating to successive presidencies, on the Internet and in all of the official languages of the Community, preventing any restriction of communication.

There is little point in publishing all of the information, in opening up those doors, but just in two or three languages, as it appears certain institutions are currently suggesting. Transparency also requires that what is communicated is understood, that it is understood by all of the citizens. We must therefore urge all of the institutions that are in favour of the democratic transparency of the Council to do everything within their capacity to guarantee that transparency in all languages.

 
  
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  Bill Newton Dunn (ALDE). – Mr President, I wish to begin by making a few comments about Mr Knapman’s absurd remarks. He said that the Commission is an unelected government. Of course, everybody knows perfectly well that it is not a government at all. Would you like it to be elected? Would you like it to be a federal Europe with an elected government? Come on, which way are you facing, Mr Knapman? Then he uses this ridiculous word: the Commission ‘dictates’ laws. It does not dictate anything: it gets its powers from the Council and Parliament. Just tell the truth to the British public – that is all we ask. I am going to abandon Mr Knapman now.

The ALDE Group is totally supportive of these reports and we want more openness. Under the British Presidency we fought very hard to persuade Mr Blair to do something. In his usual way, there were big words and promises but very little action in the Council of Ministers under the British Presidency, which was very sad. We want the Council to legislate in public. It is perfectly clear and simple: only North Korea and Beijing behave like the Council of Ministers in Brussels. That must change if we want the public to understand what is happening in Europe.

Secondly, we want legal opinions drafted within the framework of a legislative process to be public, not just to parliamentary committees but also to the public, whom we represent.

I have run out of time. However, we will all vote in favour – I hope even Mr Knapman.

 
  
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  Alexander Stubb (PPE-DE). – Mr President, having worked for six years at the Finnish representation and the Finnish Foreign Ministry – in other words, the Council – and three years in the Commission as a civil servant, I do not know if I am a liability or an asset in the discussion – probably a liability, and I address that to Pekka Shemeikka and all of his friends from the Council!

I have several points. My first point is that we are dealing here with two separate but interlinked issues: access to documentation and openness in the Council. If Mr Cashman will excuse me, I am going to focus on the latter. Sometimes I have a feeling that we are a little hypocritical in the debate because, if we look at national parliaments, many committees are never open. We are much more open than national parliaments, so we must bear that in mind.

My second point concerns the opening-up of Council meetings. It is a long story beginning with the Trumpf-Piris report in 1999, then there were several Council conclusions in 2001, the Constitution in 2004, and a Council decision in 2005. It is an ongoing story, but we are not getting it. I personally think it is a fantastic idea to open up the Council meetings. We all know how ministers use the EU as a scapegoat. First, they tap each other on the shoulder in the Council meeting and say: ‘Good compromise’; five minutes after that they go in front of their national media and say: ‘We could not do anything’. We need to open up the Council when it legislates and the sooner we do it the better.

A separate point is that, having sat through hundreds of hours of Council meetings, I can say they are probably the most boring meetings that you can get. Openness would liven up the debate in the Council, because people often come and read prepared documents. It really is boring and if we open it up it would be a bit better.

My next point is about Coreper. Let us be honest: I do not think that Coreper is ever going to open up and I do not necessarily think that is a bad thing.

I would like to finish with an unrealistic proposal, which is rather like Mr Voggenhuber’s proposal. What we should have is the Council meeting in a chamber without assistants next to them and in complete openness. That would be a truly open and transparent Council, and that is what we need.

 
  
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  Proinsias De Rossa (PSE). – Mr President, a lively, public, political debate on concrete issues is the basis for creating a European political space. By having one of our law-making institutions meeting and deciding issues in private, behind closed doors, we are denying the creation and the birth of that political space.

I do not underestimate the problems of communicating such a debate to a population of 450 million with over two dozen languages, but we do have the technology today: we have satellite TV, radio, webcasting, a vast range of communication tools which we can use, and I do not believe that cost should be used as an excuse, because the cost of not doing it, the cost of not having an open, public, lively debate in Europe is the failure to create a future for Europe.

On 22 April the Competition Council will be meeting behind closed doors to decide on the future of the Services Directive, a directive in which millions of European citizens have taken an active role and active interest. That debate should be in public.

 
  
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  Barbara Kudrycka (PPE-DE). – (PL) I am glad that the European Union institutions are becoming increasingly open and transparent, but we must remember that providing access to documents and ensuring the openness of Council meetings is not a favour which European Union institutions may but need not grant to European citizens. It is rather a legal and moral duty, in keeping with the basic principles of good management of public affairs, or what is known as good governance, because it will enable us gradually to overcome the Europeans’ alienation from the European Union institutions and their growing euroscepticism, and do away with the sort of jokes that say that all we deal with here is the symbolic curvature of the banana.

If the European Union is exporting and wishes to export its basic democratic values associated with the protection of human rights and the values of good governance, it must itself become the best example of these values. However, speaking from the perspective of the post-communist new Member States, but also of states aspiring to democracy and states in transition, I must conclude with regret that, due to their limited transparency, European Union institutions are still not the best example to follow. Therefore, we most certainly need new regulations which will particularise the duties of European Union institutions and will provide a clear and precise definition of the circumstances in which access to documents and to the records of Council meetings may be denied.

However in practice tracing most information represents a major problem. To obtain access to a document, one needs first of all to know that it exists. The next important aspect of ensuring the greatest possible access and openness of the meetings of European Union institutions is limiting corruption, conflict of interest and all ambiguities as well as accusations of lack of objectivity in decision making. How often have we heard accusations of biased decision-making by the European Union institutions, of following unclear principles...?

(The President cut off the speaker)

 
  
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  Maria Matsouka (PSE).(EL) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, ultimately the debate on the openness of meetings of the Council is a debate on democracy. I cannot but agree wholeheartedly with the recommendations by the Ombudsman and the proposals by Mr Hammerstein Mintz or my friend Michael Cashman.

The lack of information for voters on the positions defended by the representatives of their governments at European Union level is creating a grey area as to who is responsible for the decisions relating to their daily lives. Governments find it convenient to blame the Union for decisions which are not in their interests and to claim the merit for decisions which benefit their country.

Democracy, however, requires knowledge, judgment and reaction. The lack of knowledge about the positions of governments in the Council also deprives national parliaments of the facility to control the governments of their states on European issues.

Ultimately, the question of the transparency of the Council brings us to the fundamental question of whether or not we want a European public opinion, a public opinion capable of expressing its satisfaction and its displeasure, capable of sending a message to the European institutions and capable of forcing the Council, as the rapporteur rightly notes, into the collective responsibility of its ministers.

This can indeed be the course of European unification.

 
  
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  David Hammerstein Mintz (Verts/ALE). – (ES) Mr President, I would like to thank all of the members of the Committee on Petitions – a very important parliamentary committee – for their help, in particular its chairman, Mr Libicki, and its vice-chairman, Mr Cashman.

In short, I believe that this debate has demonstrated that this House is clamouring for transparency. Nevertheless, this demand is being met with deaf ears, an autistic response, and even no response at all. There are plenty of words, but no deeds.

Reflecting on Mr Voggenhuber’s proposal, I am wondering whether we really have to go as far as a parliamentary strike in order to achieve a minimum degree of transparency in the European Council? Or are we going to carry on holding these debates every year, every two years, with Parliament expressing a unanimous position, with no response from the European Council, with no firm initiative from the Commission, without the person on the street seeing it?

It is all very well that opening up the Councils was approved in October, Commissioner Wallström, but the person on the street has not seen anything, ministers do not appear on the television debating, there is no visible debate.

We must make European political debate visible, we must make the debate in the Council politically exciting, not just the debate in Parliament. That is what we are calling for, and I believe that we must adopt concrete measures and proposals and not just fine words.

 
  
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  Elmar Brok (PPE-DE).(DE) Mr President, Commissioner, please accept my apologies for only just having arrived, but the meeting of the Committee on Foreign Affairs has only just come to an end. I am glad that this report has been produced, for it is an important step in the right direction. We would not need to discuss this report if the Constitutional Treaty – in which this is one of our most important aspirations – had been ratified. If policy is to be legitimated, then transparency is a crucial issue.

This means – no more and no less – that we have to answer the public when they ask who and when is responsible for what, when decisions have to be taken. If one of the legislative bodies, namely the Council of Ministers, does not conduct its legislative business in the open, then we will end up with a problem. One possible answer during the period of reflection in which we find ourselves might be to open the doors to the public.

I am of course well aware that there are limits – not least where COREPER is concerned – to what can be done in the open, and of the possibility of negotiations being hampered by being conducted in the public eye. It may well be that the rapporteur and I do not agree on what these limits are. I really do beg you, Commissioner, Madam Vice-President, to join with us in taking this initiative and achieving progress in this area.

I would also like to express my gratitude to the European Ombudsman for the positive line he has taken in his report, for what sparked this off was a petition submitted – with help from me – by the North Rhine-Westphalia Young Christian Democrats, and we are glad that it is pressure from young people that has made possible a debate of this kind, one that will open the door to more transparency and more democracy.

 
  
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  President. The debate is closed.

The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.

Written statement (Rule 142)

 
  
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  Richard Corbett (PSE). – We have already come a long way in opening the Council to the light of day, but we must go still further and I therefore welcome the thrust of this report.

The Council used to deliberate all the time behind closed doors, with no right of public access to documents, and did not even publish the results of its votes, thereby making it impossible for national parliaments to see how the ministers representing their country voted. Over the last few years, that has changed significantly, thanks to pressure from the European Parliament.

Now, the Council at least publishes the results of votes, grants access to most documents and, thanks to the initiative of the UK Presidency last year, deliberates on codecision legislation in public. It is now time to go further and to establish the principle that all the legislative activity of the Council should be in public, as it already is for the other chamber of the EU’s legislature, the Parliament.

 
  
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  Jules Maaten (ALDE). – (NL) The Austrian Presidency must, as a matter of priority, throw open the meetings of the Council of Ministers to the public. This House, as co-legislator, meets and votes in public, and all meeting documents are posted on the Internet. This allows everyone, all organisations, media and national politicians to keep an eye on us if they so wish. I cannot see why the Council cannot do likewise.

The Council conclusions of 21 December 2005 on this subject lack boldness in this respect. It is precisely in those areas where the Council decides only by unanimous assent that it is important that both the vote and the debate take place in public. Only in that way can we put an end to the backroom deals. That is not difficult, since not even a change in the Treaty is required to open up Council meetings. All that is required is a change in the Council’s Rules of Procedure.

It is no longer appropriate for the Council to keep taking most of its decisions behind closed doors. Moreover, access to documents of the institutions must be improved. The European citizens who rejected the Constitutional Treaty in the summer of 2005 have demonstrated the need for a more transparent and more democratic Union.

 
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