Released documents contain nothing controversial
If you want to make an information request to the EU's directorate-general for employment, its webform asks you to indicate which of the 27 member states you are from. Strangely it also offers you one other option - you can say you come from Wales.
Why the employment DG has made this unique concession to Welsh nationalism is not immediately obvious. But this is one of the intriguing minor mysteries about the operation of the European Commission's access to information processes which is revealed in a report published yesterday by the campaign group Access Info Europe [1.32MB PDF].
Access Info asked the commission's main policy DGs for their internal guidance on how to handle requests made under the regulation on public access to EU documents [120KB PDF].
They were prompted to do this by the leak earlier this year of a vademecum from the trade DG. This internal handbook advised officials to write two separate reports of meetings, a factual one which could be easily disclosed and an assessment or evaluation which could be held back without the need to redact passages from just one document.
It also warned against "recording statements which may turn out to be politically embarrassing for those who have made them". And the guide added: "Avoid making personal comments in e-mails with third parties which may be the object of disclosure... (eg don't refer to the great lunch you have had with an industry representative privately or add a PS asking if he/she would like to meet for a drink)."
The commission defended these instructions on the grounds that they "make it easier to get reports out" and "avoid having to go through blanking out" documents, although the handbook has since been rewritten.
The new Access Info survey reports on what it calls "serious problems" in how its requests were treated, outlining numerous obstacles to access and discrepancies in the procedures of other DGs.
Although most complied, the competition DG refused to supply its guidance since it had been "prepared for purely internal purposes". (Contrary to first impressions the photograph does not show the Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes looking in a bucket for her department's policy on this - in fact, this is her announcing a crackdown on price-fixing in the plastics industry at a press conference earlier this month).
And the campaign group criticises DGs who leave it unclear how members of the public should file requests, demand personal details from the requester, and make the process difficult for people who don't know English.
But as for the actual guidance obtained by the research, "the main finding was that after the shock of reading the DG trade vademecum, none of the documents released held anything particularly controversial. They were in the main part professionally written documents designed with the obvious intention of helping officials handle access to documents requests".
I've always wanted to find a way to write the headline above - now I just have.
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Political bodies have taken the position that the public is the problem.The dishonesty is basicaly to hide the influence of big business in the decision making process. All of the nations knew of the banking scam in 2001 but political roadblocks were created so the bankers and investors could continue to risk the funds of individuals while they became rich. No political system has yet to own up to the role they played in the financial system collapse. The governments no longer represent the people and this imbalance in influence will continue until the people insist that it change. Just watch the US congress and see how the handmaidens of big business sell themselves to the disadvantage of the public and then blame the President. A level of dishonesty that is starting to make the US look more like a Politburo than a democratic institution. Technocrats have no loyality except to their organizations and the business masters they serve. The media has turned from news to entertainment and is more interested in adding fuel to the fire than providing the public with a true picture of who runs the governments. The corporate government is in place and the public will need to take back their governments if they want any real change. They offer the public crumbs while susidizing big business and banking and now they even tax citizens to fund the very criminals who stole their money. These multi-national organizations are business organizations and have nothing to do with public interest but are maintly conceived to create a greater distance for accountability.
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"This internal handbook advised officials to write two separate reports of meetings, a factual one which could be easily disclosed and an assessment or evaluation which could be held back without the need to redact passages from just one document."
... isn't this evidence of the so-called "chilling effect"?
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Access Info is doing excellent work on FOI in Europe, and the guide they have written is a very good step towards freedom of information in Europe. I'm working for a FOIA in Catalunya (Spain), for Spain and none of its regions have regulation of FOI whatsoever (except for a couple of articles that are near to useless).
Besides, I am a bit puzzled by DG Employment including Wales in the list of countries together with the EU members states and the members of the EEA. Do you know why? I even blogged about it http://www.aribo.eu/2009/11/dg-employment-thinks-wales-is-a-country/
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