20 Demands on the future of access to EU documents: Campaign Update

Madrid, 25 March 2012 – Since the 20 demands on the future of the EU access to documents Regulation were launched for civil society sign-on on 7 March 2012, 3 European Information Commissioners, 67 Non-governmental organisations and 6 Civil Society Coalitions representing 249 organisations have joined the campaign.
Click here to download the 20 demands on the future of EU transparency.

The 20 demands are presented to the Member State representatives working on the revision of the EU access to documents Regulation before each of their inter-governmental meetings at the Working Party on Information (WPI).

The Danish Presidency aims to get an agreement on the Regulation before the end of June, so the Working Party on Information will be meeting every two weeks to try and reach a common Council position on the future of the EU access to documents Regulation. Word has it that some Member States are resistant to the Parliament’s proposals to improve the right of access to EU documents as recognised in the EU Treaties, and are actively supporting proposals to, inter alia, strengthen the Member States’ abilities to veto release of documents produced by them, exclude legal advice from the scope of the Regulation, and restrict the definition of a document.

The first time the 20 demands were sent was on 8 March 2012, in anticipation of a WPI meeting on 9 March. At that time, the 20 demands had received 30 NGO endorsements in less than two days. The second round was sent on Sunday 25 March, ahead of the meeting scheduled for March 27th, with the number of NGO endorsements more than doubled.

Working Party on Information Meeting	Number of endorsements to the 20 demands on EU transparency
9 March 2012	30 non-governmental organisations (NGOs)
27 March 2012	67 NGOs, 3 Information Commissioners, 6 Civil society networks
13 April 2012	?
27 April 2012	?

The next two «deadlines» for sign-on will be Wednesday 11 and Wednesday 25 April. Please send your logo to anne@access-info.org so she can add you to the 20 demands.

The number of NGO endorsements should grow exponentially, so please do all you can to circulate the campaign around your networks. At the moment, the 20 demands on the future of the EU access to documents Regulation can be found in English, French (draft), Spanish and Polish. If your organisation can translate the demands or post them on your website, please let us know.

Your help in disseminating this campaign is therefore essential.