In March 2006, the European Parliament’s petition committee adopted a report by David Hammerstein Mintz (Greens/EFA, ES), calling for increased Council transparency, to further the changes that were made in the Council’s rules of procedures in December 2005. In particular, proposals raised by the Civil Society Contact Group with regard to the openness of COREPER and conciliation committees were put forward. Read EEN related article.

In another report by Michael Cashman, the Parliament’s Civil Liberties Committee called on the Commission to submit updated legislation by the end of this year on “the right of access” to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents. The MEPs say current legislation on public access to documents is too vague and still allows documents to be classified as confidential “as a matter of routine, simply because they refer to an issue which is or might be relevant from a security point of view”.

Transparency is also a Green 10 demand. Several members of this group of environmental organizations published a joint statement on 28 February 2006 in which they warned that the work of the European Commission High-Level Group on Competitiveness, Energy and the Environment should “not replace or interfere over the two years of its operation with the standard decision making procedures in the EU”. Stating that the advisory group is “very political in nature, even if it may look rather technical”, they demanded that agendas, presentations, minutes, interim and final reports of the group be made available online to the public.

For more information, please read the G-10 members statement.