EU Transparency Proposal Criticised by Sweden
Sweden has criticised recent European Commission proposals to overhaul the rules on providing public access to documents, saying they represent a step backwards, according to euobserver.com.
"We had the notion that we wouldn't exactly jump with joy over the proposal, but I must say this is a bit further away form our position, and from what we had hoped for," said Justice Minister Beatrice Ask.
"The commission says this will improve transparency. I find it difficult to find improvements here; it's almost the other way round," Ask told representatives from Swedish media at a roundtable discussion in Stockholm in early May.
Ask said the proposal, which was unveiled by Swedish Commissioner Margot Wallstrom at the end of April and update rules from 2001, singles out swathes of documents that would not be covered by the proposed transparency rules. These include documents submitted to courts and documents forming parts of investigations by European Union (EU) institutions.
The Swedish Union of Journalists has also criticised the proposals.
Meanwhile, legal experts in the Swedish government are also concerned that the proposal, if adopted, could be overruled by data legislation. Because existing data legislation allows publication of data only for the same purpose as the data was collected, this could narrow the scope for transparency, experts fear.
"This is absolutely contrary to the development we want to see," Ask said.
There is also unease in the Swedish government over the proposed new definition of documents.
"It says documents should be registered in the institutions, and at the same time that documents not registered do not exist – that simply doesn’t make sense," a legal adviser to the government claimed.
The vague definition is also criticised by the UK-based civil liberties watchdog, Statewatch.
"At a stroke the new area of openness and transparency promised in the Amsterdam Treaty will be dealt a fatal blow and we will be back in the age of the 'dinosaurs,'" according to Statewatch’s editor Tony Bunyan, referring to an expression coined by the first European ombudsman, Jacob Söderman, in 1999.
Member states are expected to decide on the new transparency proposal in the second half of next year.
At this point, Sweden will chair council meetings as part of the EU presidency, which was also the case when the current set of rules was adopted.
Ask said Stockholm has already made contact with the European Parliament and other governments on the issue to prevent a rolling back of openness and transparency.
"The new member states in the Union have shown engagement and interest in these issues. I'm pretty confident that we will able to find allies amongst them," she said.
ARMA International European Policy Brief, June 2008