8/7/2019 A Quick Guide to the State of Play on Amending the Regulation

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A quick guide to the "state of play" on amending the Regulation onaccess to EU documents

On 30 April 2008 the European Commission produced its: Proposed amendments: ExplanatoryMemorandum and Annotated text (pdf) to the Regulation 1049/2001/EC Regulation

1049/2001/EC (pdf) in operation since 2001 and ongoing. Its amendments included a controversialone to the core Article (3.1) on the definition of a "document".

The European Parliament agreed its position and put forward a number of amendments: Resolutionon Commission proposals as adopted on 11 March 2009 (Rapporteur: Michael Cashman MEP, pdf).However, the parliament did not formally adopt its report as its 1st reading position. Theparliament rejected the proposed definition of a "document" and put forward amendments to theCommission's proposals as well as new amendments over which it hopes to negotiate with theCommission.

The Council of the European Union (the 27 governments) started work on the Commission'sproposals but following the parliament's adoption of its report (but not a formal 1st reading

position) it took advice from its Legal Service.

The Council Legal Service, in simple terms, said that the parliament could amend the proposals putforward by the Commission but it could not introduce new amendments of its own accord whichwere not raised by the Commission. The Council has followed this advice since and only discussedwhat it calls "technically admissible" amendments from the parliament.

The effect of the Council's stance was to reject out-of-hand 26 amendments put forward by theparliament, see: EU doc no: 7791/09 (pdf), which sets out the Council's view (based on its LegalService Opinion) of "admissible" and "inadmissible" amendments put forward by the parliament.

The Commission said that it would not negotiate with the parliament over its original proposalsuntil it had adopted its 1st reading position.

The parliament countered this by getting advice from its Legal Service: European Parliament's LegalService: Opinion on the EPs' amendments (24 April 2009, pdf) which said it could put forward newamendments - a position endorsed by a very large majority in the full plenary session just beforethe parliament broke up for the elections.

For all the background documentation and developments see: Observatory: the Regulation onaccess to EU documents: 2008 - 2009