Thursday, October 30, 2008

Going backwards

Finnish MEP and former prime minister Anneli Jäätteenmäki is tackling the EU Commission over a proposal to make the EU's transparency problem even worse.

Current rules state that any “content…concerning a matter relating to the policies, activities and decisions falling within the institution’s sphere of responsibility” is open to the possibility of public scrutiny. But the new rules would mean that only the final, transmitted version of documents will be listed on the public register, which, Jäätteenmäki says, "will encourage policymakers to share information informally so that it will not be subject to public scrutiny."

She said:

“In all European countries the legislative procedure is open, but not here in the EU... European citizens must know what is behind the decisions that are made and what the opinions of the different nations are in the council. I could understand it if we lived maybe 50 years ago, but now that the EU is an internal market and we have common values, why don’t we release the different opinions of the member states on legislation?”

Good question.

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