International

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxemburg this week ruled in favour of more openness over proposals which member states put forward during negotiations on EU legislative initiatives. Up to now, these negotiations have taken place behind closed doors and national parliaments and the European Parliament have just had to guess what positions individual member states have taken. If it represents no demonstrable and serious danger capable of undermining the negotiations, then the ECJ ruling means that in the future this sort of information must simply be supplied.

In 2009 the NGO Access Info Europe took a complaint against the EU Council of Ministers to the ECJ. It concerned the fact that the Council was refusing to make clear which proposals had come from which member states, notably in the case of a proposed law on openness in the executive, a text known as the ‘EuroWOB’). The ECJ had already issued a preliminary ruling that Access Info was in the right, but the full Court has now ruled that the Council may not keep this sort of information back.

That’s good news, because as things stand it still happens too often that national parliaments are sidelined. The minister claims to have stood up solidly for the Netherlands’ interests, but unfortunately could not get majority backing in the Council. This kind of story can now be checked. Did the minister really pull out all the stops, or did he or she immediately bend the knee? I fear that the latter is the rule rather than the exception.

The importance of this matter can therefore not be overstated. Henceforth MPs, MEPs, NGOs and concerned members of the public can solicit information on the course of negotiation on subjects in which they have a particular interest. It has now been established that the Council must put forward extremely good arguments if they are to refuse access to such information. In my view only negotiations on international treaties, in which the EU’s strategy towards a third country is being determined, could still be cited as exceptional interests preventing openness. For the rest, openness must at all times prevail.

This is a fine breakthrough. If ministers claim to have fought their corner hard, we can soon check this. A half-hearted attitude – ‘hard in The Hague, weak in Brussels’ – can then be immediately punished. The opposite is obviously also the case: if ministers have operated skilfully, that will be clear as well. Altogether, fewer decisions should be taken in back rooms in Brussels. There are nevertheless enough of those left, and I don’t expect this to be the last case concerning transparency in Brussels to come to court.