Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-12-12-Speech-3-159"
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"en.20011212.5.3-159"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the process concerning the right to access to documents that started with the Treaty of Amsterdam is being cast in a legal framework in this way. However, a number of further provisions still need to be established.
In November of this year, this register contained references to more than 250 000 Council documents in all our official languages, and it provides access to the contents of more than 50 000 documents. The register therefore seems to be an effective and reliable instrument with which the institutions’ documents can be identified and queried. Since the register has been operational, there has understandably been a significant increase in the demand for documents, most of which have in fact been available in the register. The number of consultations of the register is continuing to increase. In 1999, more than 70 000 hits resulting in about 600 000 requests were registered – and by this we mean screens consulted or clicked on. In 2000 the number of hits and requests increased to 160 000 and 1 260 000 respectively. This trend is continuing, and we have already had 130 000 visits and more than 1 million screens consulted in the first six months of 2001.
The discussions amongst the institutions about the establishment of an interinstitutional committee that will examine what the best practices are, handle any disputes and discuss future developments relating to public access to documents in accordance with Article 15 of the regulation, are still ongoing.
The Council is of the opinion that this committee must be put together at the level of the secretaries-general of the three institutions concerned, and it must be able to submit questions of a general or political nature or relating to matters of principle to the chairmen of the three institutions.
As a result of the recent informal political trialogue between the Presidents of Parliament, the Council and the Commission of 28 November, the Vice-President of the Commission, Mrs de Palacio, formulated an interesting proposal as a solution to the problem of the level of representation within this interinstitutional committee. Her proposal was to allow this committee to meet at secretary-general level by way of an authorisation
in French – from their political bosses. I find this concept very interesting, and I told my fellow Presidents of Parliament and the Commission at the time that I would put this idea to the Council bodies for evaluation.
May I just explain what it is about, because this discussion between the Council and Parliament on the matter of the level at which discussions should take place seems rather parochial.
The Council is worried that the presidents of Parliament, the Council and the Commission would have to act as a kind of appeal court, as it were, if it were to be decided at Secretary-General level that access to a document cannot be granted. We believe that this is not the kind of role that these presidents should play. They must not become a kind of appeal court; on the contrary, they must focus on broad issues, general questions, principles and the like. And that is what concerns us. It is not about the fact that the Council does not want this interinstitutional committee; it is about making sure that we do not create a court of appeal that is approached quasi-systematically, because we do not think that that will be to anyone’s benefit. There are other bodies that can be enlisted for this purpose, and this is therefore at the heart of the discussion. I thought that the suggestion by Mrs de Palacio, Vice-President of the Commission, offered a way out. For if the secretaries-general of the three institutions meet on the basis of an authority from their presidents, they will then have a mandate and in specific cases will then have to take decisions themselves concerning access to a document.
I am telling you this to clearly explain where the problem lies as far as the Council is concerned. I hope that my fellow Council members will also find Mrs de Palacio’s procedure positive and that we will be able to solve the problem in this way and get the interinstitutional committee off the ground.
I would also like to draw your attention to the fact that Article 11, Paragraph 2 of the Regulation gives 3 June 2002 as the last date by which the document registers must be operational.
How far have we got in this regard? As you know, the Council’s document register has been available to the public since 1 January 1999. This register contains all the documents that have been put before the Council or the preparatory bodies and which either serve as the basis for consultations, or have a definite influence on the decision-making process, or give an indication of the situation in certain files."@en1
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"par délégation"1
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