Procedure completed
| Role | Committee | Rapporteur | Shadows |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lead | LIBE | CAPPATO Marco (ALDE) |
Legal Basis RoP 116-p7
Activites
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2009/01/14
Results of vote in Parliament
- Results of vote in Parliament
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T6-0022/2009
summary
The European Parliament adopted by 355 votes to 195 with 18 abstentions, a resolution on public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents (implementation of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001).The own-initiative report had been tabled for consideration in plenary by Marco CAPPATO (ALDE, IT) on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs. The resolution states that the EU institutions should now take further steps towards greater transparency, openness and democracy by moving towards an "EU Freedom of Information Act" as in the application of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 a series of shortcomings have been brought to public attention, recent judgments need to be analysed and implemented urgently by the EU institutions, while the Commission has issued its proposal for a revision of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001.The resolution emphasises that the recent Court of Justice of the European Communities (ECJ) Judgment in the Turco case further strengthens in the EU the principle by which democratic institutions have a duty to ensure publicity of their activities, documents and decisions, which is a condition of their legality, legitimacy and accountability, and that consequently documents must be published and in any event accessible and that any exception to this principle should be limited and interpreted strictly.MEPs call on all EU institutions to apply Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 in the light of the recent case-law and notably of the ECJ Judgment in the Turco case in all its implications, notably in the legislative procedures (publication of legal service opinions, strict interpretation of exceptions, obligation to provide a detailed statement of reasons for refusal, etc). They also call on the Council to review its rules to ensure publicity of all discussions, documents and information, including the identity of the Member States" delegations in the Council as well as in its working groups and expert groups, and to draw up a transcript of its public meetings.Greater access to registers and documents: MEPs believe that accessing information relating to the EU institutions still remains an obstacle-strewn path for ordinary citizens due to the lack of an effective citizen-oriented inter-institutional policy of transparency and communication. They consider that regardless of the point of access, EU citizens should be able to track a given legislative or administrative procedure and access all the documents relating to it. In this respect, an inter-institutional road-map should be defined to improve, simplify and complete the EU institutions' registers and web pages and make them interoperable.Improving transparency: the resolution regrets that, contrary to what is provided for in Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001, many preparatory legislative documents are still not registered (such as the "room documents" mainly discussed within the Council working groups set up by Coreper 1) and when registered, they are missing the inter-institutional code so that it has proved impossible to merge them in a common inter-institutional record. It underlines the fact that the existing procedures for delegated legislation (the so-called "comitology acts") which cover nine-tenths of the legally binding acts adopted every year by the EU institutions should be reviewed and applied in such a way as to ensure that democratic principles and transparency are guaranteed.The EU institutions are called upon to:create a single EU register/portal of information and documents, that should allow citizens to follow a certain procedure and access all the documents relating to it;ensure that, at least before the beginning of the next Parliamentary term: i) all the preparatory documents mention the legislative procedure reference, ii) all the agendas and outcome of the proceedings of the Council and preparatory bodies make clear reference to the background documents and are registered in good time and published in the Council Register (including the so called "room documents"), iii) they make clear to citizens in a fair and transparent way their organisational chart by indicating the remit of their internal units, the internal workflow and indicative deadlines of the dossier falling within their remit, to which services should citizens refer to obtain support, information or administrative redress, iv) all legislative proposals are accompanied by an impact assessment available to the public;define common rules on the way in which administrative procedures should be carried out and administrative documents should be tabled, classified, declassified, registered and disseminated inside and outside the EU institutions;ensure improved transparency in relation to comitology procedures, as well as to first-reading agreements negotiated between EU institutions in co-decision procedures (so-called "trilogues"), to make sure that inter-institutional agreements are fully in line with the duties of publicity, transparency and openness in legislative procedures;promote a common administrative culture of transparency founded on the principles outlined in Article 41 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, by the case-law of the ECJ, the recommendations of the European Ombudsman and the best practices of the Member States;work towards an ambitious European "Freedom of Information Act", on the basis of the current proposed revision of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001;Role of the European Parliament: MEPs believe that Parliament should be at the forefront of publicity, transparency and openness in the EU, and that before the Parliamentary elections of 2009, it should launch an extraordinary action plan, for instance within the framework of the e-Parliament initiative, to ensure that more and easily accessible information is made available on its website, on:MEPs' activities, participation in and attendance at Parliamentary work, in absolute, relative and percentage terms, available and accessible to citizens also through search criteria;Parliament's activities in plenary, committee, delegations and internal bodies (for example, the Legislative Observatory should be improved by including references and links to all relevant documents; committee and delegation work should be streamed on Parliament's website as plenary work is, and also recorded, and made available and accessible to citizens through search criteria; internal bodies, such as the Conference of Presidents, the Bureau, the Quaestors, the Working Party on Parliamentary Reform, etc, should promote and ensure the highest level of transparency of their work);MEPs' allowances and spending, in conformity with the position taken by the European Ombudsman.MEPs call for the launch of a European Year of Transparency and for a European transparency campaign to be promoted in 2009 on the occasion of the European elections.
- 2009/01/13 Debate in Parliament
- 2008/11/20 Committee report tabled for plenary, single reading
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2008/11/17
Vote in committee, 1st reading/single reading
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2007/07/12
Committee referral announced in Parliament, 1st reading/single reading
Documents
- Committee report tabled for plenary, single reading: A6-0459/2008
- Debate in Parliament: Debate in Parliament
- Results of vote in Parliament: Results of vote in Parliament
- Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading: T6-0022/2009
| Amendments | Dossier |
| 18 |
2007/2154(INI)
2008/10/30
LIBE
18 amendments...
Amendment 1 #
Motion for a resolution Citation 4 – having regard to Articles 10 and 16 of the Treaty on European Union as it is due to be amended by the Treaty of Lisbon and to Articles 15 and 298 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,
Amendment 10 #
Motion for a resolution Paragraph 5 c (new) Amendment 11 #
Paragraph 7, indent 3 a (new)] - all legislative proposals are accompanied by an impact assessment available to the public;
Amendment 12 #
Paragraph 8 a (new) 8a. Underlines the fact that the existing procedures for delegated legislation (the so-called "comitology acts") which cover nine tenths of the legally binding acts adopted every year by the EU institutions should be reviewed and applied in such a way as to ensure that democratic principles and transparency are guaranteed, that the members, proceedings and votes of the comitology committees should be made public and that national and European parliamentarians as well as citizens should have immediate access to the documents in comitology register as soon as they are sent to the members of comitology committees (as promised in 2001 by former Commissioner Barnier); considers that enhanced transparency should apply in particular to draft regulations, while Parliament should organise the processing of such proposals in the most open and transparent way, thereby avoiding opaque situations such as those which arose in connection with the regulations on aviation security on liquids and body scanners;
Amendment 13 #
Paragraph 10 a (new) 10a. Calls on the EU institutions and Member States to promote a common administrative culture of transparency founded on the principles outlined in Article 41 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, by the case-law of the ECJ , the recommendations of the European Ombudsman and the best practices of the Member States; considers that, as is already the case for data protection officers, each Directorate General of the EU institutions should ensure that documents are tabled, registered, classified, declassified and disseminated consistently with the principle of good administration, Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 and the rules of procedure of the institutions concerned;
Amendment 14 #
Paragraph 10 b (new) 10b. Calls for the launch of a European Year of Transparency and for a European transparency campaign to be promoted in 2009 on the occasion of the European elections, so that citizens are aware of their rights of access to EU documents and of EU standards regarding publicity, openness and transparency, as well as in the Member States;
Amendment 15 #
Paragraph 10 c (new) 10c. Considers that transparency at EU level should be mirrored by Member States when transposing EU legislation into national law and invites national parliaments and Conference of Community and European Affairs Committees of Parliaments of the European Union to examine the proposals contained in this resolution and to promote an EU register of parliaments' and parliamentarians' activities which could serve to ensure and increase mutual cooperation and consultation between the EU, Parliament and national parliaments, drawing also on best practice in terms of e-Parliament and e-government transparency;
Amendment 16 #
Paragraph 10 d (new) 10d. Calls on political parties and parliamentary political groups to promote transparency and openness internally and in parliaments, for instance by broadcasting their meetings and making programmes and documents available on the Internet;
Amendment 17 #
Paragraph 10 e (new) 10e. Takes note of the concerns expressed with regard to the Draft Council of Europe Convention on Access to Official Documents by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in its Opinion No. 270 (2008), and calls on Member States to include in the Draft Convention at least the amendments put forward by the members of that Assembly;
Amendment 18 #
Paragraph 10 f (new) 10f. Calls on the European Council and the ECJ(the latter as far as its administrative tasks are concerned, which are the only two bodies still not applying Regulation 1049/2001 to their documents, to reflect and to take appropriate action to remedy that situation;
Amendment 2 #
Motion for a resolution Citation 6 a (new)] - having regard to Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1700/2003 of 22 September 2003 amending Regulation (EEC, Euratom) No 354/83 concerning the opening to the public of the historical archives of the European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community1
Amendment 3 #
Motion for a resolution Recital E E. whereas the Council
Amendment 4 #
Motion for a resolution Recital E a (new) Ea. whereas according to Recital 6 of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001, access should also be granted to documents produced under the delegated powers procedure (comitology) and whereas nine tenths of the legislation produced is adopted under that procedure, and, accordingly, proper and transparent Parliamentary and democratic scrutiny should be fully guaranteed within that framework,
Amendment 5 #
Motion for a resolution Paragraph 3 3. Urgently calls on all EU institutions to apply Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 in the light of the recent case-law and notably of the Turco case in all its implications, notably in the legislative proceedings (publication of legal service opinions, strict interpretation of exceptions, obligation to provide a detailed statement of reasons for refusal, etc) and calls on the Council also to review its rules to ensure publicity of all discussions, documents and information, including the identity of the Member States’ delegations in the Council, as well as in its working groups and expert groups, and to draw up a transcript of its public meetings, since the ECJ conclusions concerning the fact that the exception on the protection of the decision-making process is outweighed by the public interest in openness - as different views on a legislative act allow for a greater legitimacy for the institutions - apply also in this case;
Amendment 6 #
Motion for a resolution Paragraph 3 a (new)] 3a. Calls on the EU institutions to define common rules on the way in which administrative procedures should be carried out and administrative documents should be tabled, classified ,declassified, registered and disseminated inside and outside the institutions, bearing in mind that the transparency principle is indissociable from the principle of good administration as proclaimed by the European Parliament, Council and Commission in Article 41 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union; in the same perspective, Regulation (EEC, Euratom) No 354/83 should be merged as part of the revision of Regulation 1049/2001 to include definitions of common rules on live, intermediate and historical archives in order to avoid the current inconsistencies between the practices of the EU institutions and the Member States;
Amendment 7 #
Motion for a resolution Paragraph 4 4. Believes that Parliament should be at the forefront of publicity, transparency and openness in the EU, and that before the Parliamentary elections of 2009, it should launch an extraordinary action plan , for instance within the framework of the e- Parliament initiative, to ensure that more and easily accessible information is made available
Amendment 8 #
Motion for a resolution Paragraph 5 a (new) 5a. Considers that retrieving documents and information would be easier if the documents themselves were tabled, registered and re-used by other legislative institutions in compliance with common standards (for instance for references to different version of the same document, its amendments, annexes and corrigenda)1 by using open-source word processors, effective multilingualism and technologies that also allow persons with disabilities to gain access to information and documents, as suggested by the Commission to the Member States in its Communication on interoperability solutions for European public administrations (ISA) (COM (2008)0583) and as provided for in Directive 2003/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 November 2003 on the re-use of public sector information2);
Amendment 9 #
Motion for a resolution Paragraph 5 b (new) source: PE-415.027
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