{"id":27919,"date":"2017-03-14T18:37:10","date_gmt":"2017-03-14T17:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.access-info.org\/?p=27919"},"modified":"2018-11-13T10:03:40","modified_gmt":"2018-11-13T09:03:40","slug":"enquiry-about-legislative-transparency-in-the-council-welcomed-by-access-info","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.access-info.org\/es\/2017-03-14\/enquiry-about-legislative-transparency-in-the-council-welcomed-by-access-info\/","title":{"rendered":"Enquiry about legislative transparency in the Council welcomed by Access Info"},"content":{"rendered":"

Madrid, 14 March 2017<\/em> \u2013 Access Info Europe today expressed concern over insufficient record keeping in the Council of the EU and welcomed the launch of the European Ombudsman\u2019s strategic enquiry<\/a> into transparency of one of the EU\u2019s key decision making institutions.<\/p>\n

A focus of the Ombudsman\u2019s enquiry is whether the Council is complying with a 2013 judgment of the European Court of Justice,[1] a case won by Access Info Europe in which the Court ruled that the public should have access to the positions of Member States in order to permit participation in legislative processes.<\/p>\n

\u201cOngoing holes in Council record keeping, such as the failure to keep minutes or records of meetings containing only broad generalities, are seriously undermining the public\u2019s ability to find out about what national governments are discussing inside the Council<\/em>,\u201d said Helen Darbishire, Executive Director, Access Info Europe.<\/p>\n

Access Info has previously noted instances of poor record keeping in the Council whereby requesters are even told that minutes of meetings have not been taken<\/a>. At least two cases have been identified when the Council has stated minutes of meetings \u201chad not been produced\u201d or \u201chad not been issued.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDecision making behind closed doors in the Council distorts public perception about who takes decisions in Europe. This makes it harder to identify those responsible for decisions that are unpopular or that potentially violate human rights such decisions about the financial crisis or the EU-Turkey deal on refugees seeking shelter in Europe<\/em>,\u201d added Darbishire.<\/p>\n

Record keeping is an essential element of a \u2018good administration\u2019, a fundamental right for all EU citizens under Article 41 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.<\/p>\n

As part of the enquiry, the Ombudsman is also investigating whether there is consistency in the practices between working parties on transparency, the completeness and accessibility of documents on the Council\u2019s document register.<\/p>\n

For more information, please contact:<\/h2>\n

Luisa Izuzquiza<\/strong>, Communications Officer | Access Info Europe
\nor
\nAndreas Pavlou<\/strong>, Campaigner and Researcher | Access Info Europe<\/p>\n

Send an e-mail<\/a> or call +34\u202f913\u202f656\u202f558<\/p>\n

Notes:<\/strong><\/p>\n

[1] Access Info took the Council to court over its refusal to disclose the names of Member States putting forward proposals for reform of the EU\u2019s transparency rules. In the final ruling in favour of transparency in 2013, the Court upheld Access Info Europe\u2019s arguments that the information was essential to be able to participate in Council decision-making processes and to hold the EU to account. You can find more information on the case here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Photo: European Parliament<\/a> via Flick (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Madrid, 14 March 2017 \u2013 Access Info Europe today expressed concern over insufficient record keeping in the Council of the EU and welcomed the launch of the European Ombudsman\u2019s strategic enquiry into transparency of one of the EU\u2019s key decision making institutions. A focus of the Ombudsman\u2019s enquiry is whether the Council is complying with a 2013 judgment of the European Court of Justice,[1] a case won by Access Info Europe in which the Court ruled that the public should have access to the positions of Member States in order to permit participation in legislative processes. \u201cOngoing holes in Council<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":27922,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125,51],"tags":[924,925,793,923,548,759,926],"class_list":["post-27919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-eut","category-article","tag-council","tag-council-of-the-eu","tag-council-of-the-european-union","tag-enquiry","tag-eu-ombudsman","tag-european-ombudsman","tag-legislative-transparency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.access-info.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.access-info.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.access-info.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.access-info.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.access-info.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27919"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.access-info.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27927,"href":"https:\/\/www.access-info.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27919\/revisions\/27927"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.access-info.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.access-info.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.access-info.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.access-info.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}