European University Institute Library

Transparency by disclosure, tracking the evolving landscape of EU document registers, Matthias Haller

eng

Access to documents is an important cornerstone of transparency in the EU. Access is generally achieved in two ways: institutions may disclose documents on their own initiative (proactive disclosure) or release them upon request (passive disclosure). Both forms are foreseen in the Access Regulation 1049/2001 – and the same Regulation also provides for the establishment of specific document registers. These registers play a key role for both forms of disclosure: they are the preferred place for proactive disclosure; and they are an important supporting tool for passive disclosure insofar as the registers shall include reference numbers and descriptions of all documents, enabling citizens to know which documents exist and can be requested. The right of access to documents and the Access Regulation in general have already been analysed in-depth. In contrast, the closely related instrument of document registers and especially their practice are still under-examined. This work aims to fill this gap at least for the registers of the Parliament, the Council and the Commission. It examines the legal foundations and the practice of these registers, revealing two salient gaps. The first gap exists between the strict rules of the Access Regulation and the softer rules of the institutions, the second – and even more glaring – between the entirety of these rules and practice. The latter gap emerges from an empirical study of the registers’ user-friendliness, completeness and proactivity. The analysed registers show deficiencies in particular with regard to the last two of these criteria for a good document register, albeit not to the same extent in all three institutions. In the light of these shortcomings and recent developments in specific areas such as the food sector, this thesis concludes by looking to the future of document registers, which should in this author’s view consist of more proactive and structured registers

Includes bibliographical references (pages 57-59)

no index present

non fiction

Transparency by disclosure

theses

1372628040

Matthias Haller

LLM thesesEUI theses

tracking the evolving landscape of EU document registers