FW: Netherlands takes EU Council to court over access to documents

[Herman Beun]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Lang leve Dick Benschop!

-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: statewatch-off at geo2.poptel.org.uk
[mailto:statewatch-off at geo2.poptel.org.uk]
Verzonden: maandag 25 september 2000 14:40
Aan: nettime-l at bbs.thing.net;
Statewatch.mailing.list at smtpgate2.poptel.org.uk;
Statewatch.-.SEMDOC.mailing.list at smtpgate2.poptel.org.uk
Onderwerp: Netherlands takes EU Council to court over access to
documents


NEWS RELEASE

The cabinet of the Netherlands government decided last Friday (22
September) to take the Council of the European Union (the EU
member states) to the European Court of Justice over its decision
to change the EU code on public access to documents. (The
"Solana/NATO Decision", which was taken on 26 July, extended
the existing code to EU common foreign and defence policy but
introduced blanket exceptions and greater secrecy across a range
of other policy areas).

In a statement the Netherlands government said that it contested
the way that the decision was made (with no consultation of
national parliaments, the European Parliament or civil society).
They are also opposed to the way in which the amended decision
will affect public access to EU information and said that it
contradicted the commitment in Article 255 of the Amsterdam
Treaty to "enshrine" the public's right of access to documents.

On 13 September the Legal Affairs Committee of the European
Parliament voted in favour of legal action against the Council over
the Decision.

Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor, comments:

Now the European Commission's demand that the so-called
"space to think" for officials (public servants) is more important
than the citizen's right to know how and why decisions are made
has to be challenged.

A Statewatch briefing on the case against the Council of the EU,
press release on the Netherlands decision, and full background on
the Solana/NATO decision is available on the Statewatch website.

<http://www.statewatch.org/news>
________________________________________________________
Statewatch: monitoring the state and civil liberties in Europe
PO Box 1516, London N16 0EW
tel: 0044-20-8802-1882

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