Book Review: Increasing Transparency in the European Union?
| Author | Magdalena Elisabeth de Leeuw |
| DOI | 10.1177/1023263X0401100208 |
| Date | 01 June 2004 |
| Published date | 01 June 2004 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
Book Reviews
11 MJ 2 (2004) 211
Veerle Deckmyn, Increasing Transparency in the European Union?,
European Institute for Public Administration, 2002, 287 pages, paperback
Developments in the field of transparency have moved rapidly in the EU, especially if
one considers that a decade ago it was virtually a non-issue. Transparency was placed
on the EU political agenda in the aftermath of the Treaty of Maastricht and remained
high on the agenda as a result of continuous pressure from different groups. This led to
the adoption of a Code of Conduct on public access to Council and Commission
documents. In the succeeding years many other measures have been taken to enhance
transparency and openness of the decision-making process in the European Union. The
Treaty of Amsterdam marked a new stage in the process of opening up the decision-
making process. The concept of openness was introduced into the EU Treaty, both by
granting citizens for the first time a right of access to documents (Article 255 EC), and
by stating that EU decisions must be taken as openly as possible and as closely as
possible to the citizens (Article 1 TEU). The developments that have taken place
between Maastricht and Amsterdam were covered by an earlier volume in this series
published under the title Openness and Transparency in the European Union. This
volume takes the issue four years further and covers the period since the adoption of the
Amsterdam Treaty until the year 2001. This year is characterized by the adoption of
Regulation 1049/2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and
Commission documents. Like the other volume, this one is the result of a conference
organized by European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA) on the theme of
transparency and contains contributions of academics, European and national civil
servants and journalists. Likewise, its perspective is primarily legal, although there are
contributions of a more political science character. The length as well as the quality of
the single contributions differ considerably. The book is divided into two uneven
sections, the first is the most important one and is titled the evolution of the
transparency debate.
It is not clear why the term openness has been deleted from the title of this volume, as
one of its principal aims stated is to analyze the changes brought about by the new
Regulation on public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission
documents. In fact a considerable part of the contributions address this specific aspect
of openness. The other stated aim of the book is to retrace the evolution of the law and
policy of transparency in the years since the adoption of the Treaty of Amsterdam. Has
the Treaty of Amsterdam been a constitutional watershed as envisaged at the time of its
enactment? An initial problem with this volume is the lack of a working-definition of
transparency. Transparency and openness are terms which are interpreted differently by
the institutions, Member States and in legal literature. This lack of a definition is
remedied to a certain extent by contributions of some authors who analyze the different
meanings of those terms, e.g. Ian Harden and Frankie Schram.
In the first contribution to this volume, Peers (academic) sets out in a nutshell the
evolution of this issue since the attachment of the declaration on the right of access to
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