Against the background of the problematic legislative recast/review process of Regulation No 1049/2001, which found itself in a political deadlock for 3 years yet recently seems to have been revitalized, and on occasion of the recent publication of Egmont Paper No 50 “Public Access to Documents: Jurisprudence between Principle and Practice”, a roundtable was organized to discuss some of the “hot potatoes” permeating the debate on public access to documents. Four topics were singled out for discussion: (1) a space to think and/or negotiate, (2) Member State documents, (3) investigations, and (4) legal advice. More generally, the participants were invited to reflect on the question whether the EU has adopted a balanced approach that aims for an optimal level of transparency. Given that over the last couple of years the main driver of development in this domain has inevitably been the European Court of Justice, the discussion (also) focused on the likely
impact of the Court’s recent case law.

Report public acess to documents

(Photo credit: ppdigital, Morguefile License)