Conference about Civil Society’s Experiences in the exercise of the Right to Access to Information
Helen Darbishire2018-11-13T09:41:09+01:00Date: 21/03/2018 Place: Conference Hall of Ortega y Gasset-Gregorio Marañón Foundation, Madrid
Date: 21/03/2018 Place: Conference Hall of Ortega y Gasset-Gregorio Marañón Foundation, Madrid
Madrid, 13 March 2018 – In light of the shocking news that Jan Kuciak was likely killed as a result of his work as an investigative journalist and whose freedom of information requests may have been passed to the subject of his inquiry, a total of 61 civil society organizations today wrote to the European Parliament calling for stronger safeguards for those who exercise the right of access to information. The statement and the list of signatories can be found here Please contact Access Info to add your organisation The statement, sent to all 751 Members of the European Parliament
Madrid/Brussels, 13 March 2018 Dear Member of the European Parliament In advance of tomorrow's parliamentary debate on the killing of Slovak investigative journalist Jan Kuciak, please find below a statement signed by 61 civil society organisations from across Europe and elsewhere expressing their concern about the fact that his investigation may have been exposed after he submitted request for information, and calling on the European Union to take action to help protect journalists and all those who exercise their fundamental right of access to information. More details can be found in this story by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting
Madrid, 2 March 2018 – Access Info Europe has welcomed today the start of proactive publication of EU Commissioners travel expenses as a positive step towards greater transparency and accountability of spending of public funds. Proactive publication of this information had been a crucial demand of Access Info, which has led a campaign for greater transparency of travel expenses since 2014. Finally, in September 2017 the European Commission had announced changes to Commissioners’ code of conduct that would require publication of these expenses every two months. Since Wednesday (28 February 2018), the information is publicly available online, although it’s not
Proceso | 22/02/2018 Spanish- Contrasta el tratamiento diferenciado que en Europa se le ha dado a las rondas de renegociaciones comerciales y políticas del acuerdo global entre México y la Unión Europea (UE). Mientras las comerciales fueron más o menos conocidas por el público y la prensa, las políticas, dentro de las cuales se discutió la importante cláusula democrática, destacaron por su hermetismo. Read more...
Date: 20/02/2018 from 18:00 to 20:30hrs Place: Medialab Prado, Madrid
Date: 14/02/2018 Place: MediaLab Prado, Madrid
Madrid, 13 February 2018 – Access Info today welcomed the European Ombudsman recommendation that the Council of the European Union increase transparency of its legislative process in order to guarantee citizens’ right to hold their elected representatives to account and to participate in the democratic life of the EU. Two main findings of the Ombudsman’s inquiry into transparency of the Council, to which Access Info submitted a series of proposals in December 2017, are that the Council’s systematic failure to record the names of Member States along with their positions on legislative matters constitutes maladministration, and that there is over-classification
Madrid, 8 February 2018 - The General Court of the European Union has ruled that the public does not have the right to access the European Commission’s legal advice on the March 2016 EU-Turkey agreement on returning migrants and asylum seekers from Greece to Turkey. The Commission had applied a series of exceptions to documents requested by Access Info Europe, documents that the court process revealed included late night emails between high level public officials discussing legal and political aspects of the controversial deal. The judgments shed further light on the scope and application by the EU Commission of the
From 7 March 2016, the day when a pre-agreement with Turkey was reached, to 12 April 2016, when the deal was already under implementation, the European Commission consulted with its legal services on a wide range of issues related to the legality of the EU-Turkey agreement. These consultations resulted in a total of 11 documents – sometimes produced at late hours in the night – which were exchanged between the different actors involved in the making of the deal, accompanied with telephone conversations. Access to that information was challenged by Access Info Europe in two cases before the General Court