Open Government in the EU
On 1 November, the Dutch Association for Public Administration awarded Maarten Hillebrandt the Van Poelje Prize for his dissertation entitled Living Transparency. The development of access to documents in the Council of the EU and its democratic implications.
Public Access to Documents in the EU, by Leonor Rossi and Patricia Vinagre e Silva, (Oxford/Portland, Hart Publishing, 2017, ISBN 9781509905331); xxxviii + 340pp.; £49.00 hb.
Access to EU Documents: A Policy in Three Acts
On 7 February, the EU celebrated a remarkable anniversary. Exactly twenty-five years ago on that day, the Heads of State and Government (HSG) of the European Community’s then twelve Member States took the bold leap forward by signing the Maastricht Treaty. Another leap forward lay tucked away in one of the Treaty’s accompanying texts, even when the Member States’ representatives did not realise it at the time of signing. Declaration 17, attached to the Maastricht Treaty, recognised the positive relation between transparency and democracy, and professed an intention to take steps to advance such transparency. Thus began the First Act of a transformative development called Access to Documents.
The Dutch government, which currently holds the Presidency of the EU, has recently announced that it will host a “transparency unconference” in Amsterdam on 1 June.
Team members of the Open Government in the EU research group recently presented their view of openness and secrecy in the EU institutions in presentations held in Berlin and Brussels.
On Sunday 19 October, professor Deirdre Curtin entered into a dialogue with Carolin Emcke in a public event entitled “Keine Demokratie. Nirgends?“. The dialogue concerned issues of openness and mistrust of European decision making, and took place in the context of Curtin’s research stay at the Wissenschaftkolleg zu Berlin during the academic year 2014-2015.
On Monday 20 October, Maarten Hillebrandt gave a presentation at an ERA conference on access to documents. The presentation addressed recent experiences with regulation 1049/2001 in practice in the EU’s core institutions. The Europaïsche Rechtsakademie (ERA) offers regular seminars on specific areas of European law for practitioners inside and outside of the European institutions.