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Commission should name lobbyists at meetings, EU court rules |
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Jochen Luypaert, November 9, 2007, EUobserver An EU court has dealt a blow to the use of privacy protection laws by the European Commission to blank out the names of lobbyists it has interacted with.
On Thursday (8 November), the European Court of First Instance annulled a Commission decision refusing to disclose the names of all beer industry representatives and other participants at an antitrust meeting in 1996.
Bavarian Lager Co. Ltd, a UK-based importer of German beer, had demanded access to the full participants list.
While the commission provided minutes of the meeting, it blanked out five names, saying that two of the people concerned had expressly objected to disclosure of their identity and that the commission had not managed to contact the other three.
According to the commission, the disclosure of these five names would have undermined the protection of the privacy and the integrity of the individual.
But the court argued that the right of access to documents containing personal data must be guaranteed on condition that the communication of those data does not undermine protection of the privacy and integrity of the person concerned.
The mere fact that a document contains personal data, such as names, does not necessarily mean that the privacy or integrity of the persons concerned is affected, the court said.
If the commission wishes to do so, it can make an appeal against the ruling, limited to questions of law only, before the European Court of Justice within two months.
Corporate Europe Observatory, a transparency watchdog, welcomed the court's verdict.
"The Court of First Instance's judgement is very good news for all those (both inside and outside the institutions) who want to improve transparency in EU decision-making," said Erik Wesselius, of the organisation, according AFP news agency.
The court ruling follows a separate complaint by the EU ombudsman. In July, ombudsman Nikiforos Diamandouros expressed his opposition against the Commission's practice of blanking out of lobbyists' names in released documents.
The lobbyist issue – who lobbies where and how much access they have – has become a hot political topic in Brussels.
Earlier this year, the Commission issued a blueprint for a voluntary lobbyists' register, which would give insight into whom lobbyist are working for and how much money they are paid.
In all, some 15,000 to 20,000 people work in Brussels as lobbyists – for trade associations, in-house corporate PR departments, law firms, public service NGOs or specialist PR firms. |
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