[Nettime-bold] The EU and open governments - a leauge table

[statewatch-off@geo2.poptel.org.uk]

EXCLUSIVE REPORT: Statewatch Audit on EU openness shows   Germany and France pushing for greater secrecy and the UK ‘sitting on the fence’.

The Council of the European Union has drafted its position on  the new code of public access to EU documents (effectively rules on freedom of information in the EU). This is in response to the new code proposed by the  European Commission. The Council’s “common position”  represents the views of the governments of the 15 EU member  states.

Statewatch has carried an Audit of the amendments proposed  by the member states to the Council’s draft position. Each  country is ranked according to whether their proposals would  provide for greater public access to information or an increase in  EU secrecy. It shows that Germany and France lead the way in calling for even greater secrecy, the UK is “sitting on the fence” and Denmark, Netherlands, Finland and Sweden are trying to improve the Council’s draft common position.

> 		Denmark   		[most pro-openness]      







> Netherlands







> Finland







> Sweden







> Italy







> Belgium







> Spain







> Greece







> UK







> Ireland







> Portugal







> Luxembourg







> Austria







> France







> Germany		[most pro-secrecy]








[The table is based on the proposals made by each member state and an “eight key criteria test” - for details see full story.]

The Council’s position is to be adopted at the General Affairs Council on the 20 November. Those hoping for greater openness and with it an  increase in democratic standards may be disappointed, since as  it stands the Council’s position is worse than the Commission’s  proposal. Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor, commented:

> “It seems for most EU governments ‘openness’  makes good ‘spin’ but they do not really believe  in it - as the Council has said too much openness  “could fuel public discussion”.”








[“Could fuel public discussion” was the reason given to Mr  Bunyan when he was refused access by the Council General  Secretariat to the document containing the Council’s draft  position and the member states proposals. Mr Bunyan’s  application for the document was made under the existing code  of access - it would not even fall within the scope of the new  code and access could be automatically refused with the  justification that the EU instiutions need “space to think”. The Council’s draft common position was leaked to Statewatch]

The exclusive Statewatch Audit and analysis is available from Statewatch  News Online, URL:

<http://www.statewatch.org/news>

In a separate but not unrelated development, the Swedish government has joined the Netherlands and the European Parliament in calling for legal action  against the Council following their decision to amend the existing  code of access in July to accommodate NATO demands for  greater secrecy in security and "non-military crisis management"  cooperation (the “Solana Decision”). Comprehensive background is available on the Statewatch website.

OTHER EU NEWS: Fair Trials Abroad criticises increasing imbalance between EU security agenda and the protection of civil liberties

In response to the European Commission's communication on the EU's programme of measures to implement the principle of EU- wide mutual recognition of judgements and court orders in criminal cases. FTA set out their ongoing concern about the effect on suspect's rights and civil liberties. They also call for an immediate halt to EU legislation that increases "international law enforcement powers" until safeguards are in place. Steven Jakobi, Director of FTA commented:

"The Post Tampere process is currently perpetuating and increasing the imbalance between "Security" matters of prosecution and crime prevention on the one hand, and "Freedom" matters of defence and the protection of civil liberties on the other. The very fabric of Justice is at stake. We would urge both national   and European Parliamentarians to oppose any increase in   International law enforcement powers, under whatever guise they   appear, until visible progress is made in safeguarding Citizens   rights".

Full story and background to the Council's mutual recognition programme are available on Statewatch News Online.
________________________________________________________ Statewatch: Monitoring the state and civil liberties in Europe
PO Box 1516, London N16 0EW
0044 20 8802 1882

_______________________________________________ Nettime-bold mailing list Nettime-bold@nettime.org http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold