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5 Mar 2020

Call for Transparency of Frontex

2020-05-04T10:04:56+02:00

Madrid/Brussels, 5 March 2020 – Access Info Europe today joined Open Knowledge Germany and more than 40 civil society organisations in calling on the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) to stop imposing legal fees on activists and human rights defenders in order to prevent them from exercising their right to access information. In a letter sent to the Frontex Director, Fabrice Leggeri, and the Head of Legal and Procurement Unit, Hervé Caniard, the organisations ask the EU agency to retract the lawyers’ bill passed to activists Luisa Izuzquiza and Arne Semsrott, who had presented the first access to

Call for Transparency of Frontex2020-05-04T10:04:56+02:00
5 Mar 2020

Malta: Access Info in Court to defend the right of access to information

2020-03-05T16:51:04+01:00

Malta, 5 March 2020 – Access Info today argued before the Maltese Information and Data Protection Appeals Tribunal that denying non-residents the right to request information violates Malta’s commitments under international human rights law, EU law, and its own Constitution. The legal challenge relates to a refusal in August 2019 by Malta’s Ministry for Home Affairs and National Security to register a request on migrant returns made by Access Info’s Martina Tombini on the grounds that Malta’s FOI law states that only those who are EU citizens and have been resident for at least five years can submit requests. In

Malta: Access Info in Court to defend the right of access to information2020-03-05T16:51:04+01:00
2 Mar 2020

Frontex Legal Bill Risks Chilling Effect on Defence of Transparency

2020-03-05T16:39:37+01:00

2 March 2020 – Access Info today expressed its concern at the high lawyers’ bill of €23,700.81 sent by the EU’s border agency Frontex to transparency activists Luisa Izuzquiza and Arne Semsrott, after they lost an access to documents case at the Court of Justice of the European Union. The bill is for outside legal assistance as well as travel costs, although no breakdown of the precise elements has been received. The case related to a request for access to documents about naval operations carried out by Frontex in the Mediterranean as part of border control of trafficking and rescue

Frontex Legal Bill Risks Chilling Effect on Defence of Transparency2020-03-05T16:39:37+01:00
27 Feb 2020

European Commission publishes Commissioners’ Expenses historical data after advocacy by Access Info

2020-02-27T12:17:17+01:00

27 February 2020 – Access Info Europe today welcomed the online publication of the European Commissioners' Mission Expenses from December 2017 to December 2019, which had been previously taken offline by the European Commission. The renewed publication of the data comes after Access Info denounced its non-availability, submitted a formal request for it via that AsktheEU.org platform, and wrote to Commissioner Vera Jourová, in charge of Values and Transparency; no response has yet been received to that letter. “We are pleased to see that minimum standards of transparency have been restored, in line with the 2017 Commission commitment to publish

European Commission publishes Commissioners’ Expenses historical data after advocacy by Access Info2020-02-27T12:17:17+01:00
14 Feb 2020

The EU should open up to citizens via social media to engage them in decision making

2020-03-02T17:27:21+01:00

Madrid, 14 February 2020 – Citizens across Europe need better access to information to participate in decision-making processes at European, national, and local level. This is one of the main recommendations by Access Info Europe and partners in the publication ‘YOU4EU Policy Recommendations’, presented in Brussels on 6 February 2020 at the high-level conference “Engaging citizens for good governance in Cohesion Policy”. The publication is based on extensive research in five countries by Access Info Europe in Spain, Belgrade Open School in Serbia, Gong in Croatia, Institute Alternative in Montenegro and PiNA in Slovenia. The organisations found that European Institutions

The EU should open up to citizens via social media to engage them in decision making2020-03-02T17:27:21+01:00
13 Feb 2020

Call for Transparency of the EU Court of Justice

2020-02-13T18:16:50+01:00

Madrid, 12 February 2020 – Access Info today joined the organisation The Good Lobby, and nearly 250 signatories in sending an open letter to the President of the European Court of Justice, asking for their hearings to be live streamed so that there is genuine transparency in the Court's proceedings. The letter to the Court President, Konen Lenaerts, draws attention to the need of restore citizens' trust in judicial system "at a time of growing, and worrisome, populistic attacks on the judicial branch across the EU." The signatories denounce the lack of transparency of the Court's hearings, which prevents European

Call for Transparency of the EU Court of Justice2020-02-13T18:16:50+01:00
12 Feb 2020

ACT! Fighting Corruption at Local Level

2021-08-30T12:04:02+02:00

Madrid, 11 February 2020 – The Anticorruption City Toolkit (ACT!) is a project designed to prevent corruption at local level by providing municipalities with policies and digital tools for improving the detection and reporting of corruption, for receiving information requests, and for controlling public procurement and budgeting. The project is being carried out by a pan-European consortium comprising Access Info Europe in Spain, Transparency International Italia, Avviso Pubblico, Ondata, and Openpolis in Italy, and Vouliwatch in Greece, together with the municipalities of Athens, Madrid, and Milan. During the first phase of the project, in-depth surveys were conducted to map the

ACT! Fighting Corruption at Local Level2021-08-30T12:04:02+02:00
5 Feb 2020

European Commission takes historical expenses data offline! Access Info publishes expenses of the previous Commission.

2020-02-06T12:05:48+01:00

Madrid/Brussels, 5 February 2020 – Access Info Europe today condemned the removal from the European Commission website of all the previous travel expenses data of Commissioners, and has written a letter to Commissioner Vera Jourová, who is charged with Values and Transparency, calling for publication of the historical and current expenses data in an accessible, user-friendly format, in real time. Breaching a 2017 commitment to publish Commissioners' mission expenses data, a commitment that itself came about after a three-year campaign for transparency by the Madrid-based organisation Access Info Europe, the Commission has now archived all the previously published data to

European Commission takes historical expenses data offline! Access Info publishes expenses of the previous Commission.2020-02-06T12:05:48+01:00
28 Jan 2020

Spain: Government should accept all UN recommendations on freedom of expression and information

2020-01-28T17:55:51+01:00

Madrid, 28 January 2020 – Access Info Europe, together with seven international and Spanish civil society organisations, today called on the Spanish Government to accept recommendations on freedom of expression and information  made by other UN member states during Spain’s review at the Human Rights Council. The recommendations were made on 22 January 2020 as part of the regular Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process, and reflect those presented by civil society in its report. Priorities include urgent modification of the Penal Code and abolishing the Law on Citizens’ Security (the so-called “gag law” which restricts expression on the internet) to

Spain: Government should accept all UN recommendations on freedom of expression and information2020-01-28T17:55:51+01:00
27 Jan 2020

European Commissioners’ Expenses Transparency: Ombudsman accepts challenge to secrecy justified by “privacy”

2021-03-29T15:56:52+02:00

Madrid, 27 January 2020 – The European Ombudsman has accepted two complaints from Access Info against the refusal by the European Commission to provide information about the exact nature of “miscellaneous” travel expenses claimed by various Commissioners, including former Commission President Jean Claude Juncker’s spending of €8,320 while at the G20 in Buenos Aires in November 2018. The Commission has argued that it cannot give the details of what the funds were spent on because it would violate the privacy of the Commissioners, something that Access Info is challenging. The other mystery spending which the Commission includes how Commissioner Cecilia

European Commissioners’ Expenses Transparency: Ombudsman accepts challenge to secrecy justified by “privacy”2021-03-29T15:56:52+02:00
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