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Curtin, Deirdre --- "Secrecy regulation by the European Union inside out" [2013] ELECD 687; in Cole, David; Fabbrini, Federico; Vedaschi, Arianna (eds), "Secrecy, National Security and the Vindication of Constitutional Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2013) 302

Book Title: Secrecy, National Security and the Vindication of Constitutional Law

Editor(s): Cole, David; Fabbrini, Federico; Vedaschi, Arianna

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781781953853

Section: Chapter 18

Section Title: Secrecy regulation by the European Union inside out

Author(s): Curtin, Deirdre

Number of pages: 20

Abstract/Description:

The normative concept of transparency tends to promise the sun, the moon and the stars. The aim of opening up government is to create a democratic and accountable state as well as an efficient one. In the European Union (EU) it is no different – indeed, if anything the expectations are higher. Transparency – most frequently used as a short hand for access to documents, although this is arguably too limited a view as to its scope – has for the past twenty years (since the run up to the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty) been presented as a type of holistic medicine designed to remedy many of the ailments the EU is perceived to have. A central ailment is its limited legitimacy and transparency have been propagated as a means to boost the legitimacy of the EU. The aim of achieving more transparency in the functioning of the various EU institutions is lauded by almost everyone: the European institutions, the politicians and bureaucrats, the members of parliament, the judges and civil society. All these actors proclaim and expect beneficial effect from the implementation of transparency in the EU. Yet it seems we may have to learn to live, rather counter-intuitively, with the opposite: less and not more transparency and access to documents. Since 2008 the effort to revise the Access Regulation (from 2001) has been seriously held up because of inter-institutional disagreement as to procedure and content as well as among the Member States themselves. The Danish Presidency, attempting to break a deadlock of several years, circulated in 2012