The 15 December 2011 saw Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) vote to increase accessibility to the public of documents held by European Union Institutions. The current legislation on "public access to documents” only covers the European Parliament, Council and Commission but is to be extended to all EU institutions, bodies, offices and agencies to enhance transparency, accountability, and democracy in the EU.

Any data content, no matter its form (written on paper or stored in electronic form or as a sound, visual or audio-visual recording), concerning a matter falling within the sphere of responsibility of an EU institution, body, office or agency would be considered a document.

There is however exceptions to the right of access as in principle, all documents of the institutions should be accessible to the public. However, certain public and private interests (e.g. public security, intellectual property rights, etc.), could be protected by way of exceptions. The exceptions would not apply to documents transmitted in the context of legislative procedures or for the purpose of influencing policy-making by lobbyists and other interested parties, MEPs underline.

Furthermore, these exceptions could not apply if there were an "overriding public interest in disclosure". This interest would be deemed to exist where the document requested relates to the "protection of fundamental rights and the rule of law, sound management of public funds, or the right to live in a healthy environment, including emissions into the environment".                     

An institution invoking one of these exceptions - fundamental rights, public funds, and the environment - would nonetheless have to show that the risk to the interest protected is foreseeable and not purely hypothetical, and define how access to the document could specifically and effectively undermine the interest protected.

Member States should not have a right to veto access to documents originating from them, nor a right to refer to provisions in their own legislation in order to justify confidentiality. They would however have to be consulted in order to assess whether one of the exceptions foreseen by this regulation is applicable.

MEPs will continue negotiations with the Council and the Commission on this file to try to reach an agreement.

Further information can be found here

The following report from the European Ombudsman can offer more insight into this topic