Open Letter: end secretive info policy

CEO and other civil society groups have called upon the European Commission to act against the secretive information policy of its trade department. In an open letter to President Barroso, Trade Commissioner Ashton, Transparency Commissioner Kallas and Communication Commissioner Wallström, the organisations criticised an internal DG Trade memo, which encourages staff to conceal information about meetings with lobbyists in case of access to information requests.

The open letter, which follows the release of the internal memo in an article from the EU Observer in April, urges the President and the Commissioners to undertake an urgent review of DG Trade's access to documents policy. The groups also want DG Trade to immediately release documents which have been withheld from public scrutiny as a result of the policy.

DG Trade's internal briefing

• advises DG Trade staff to avoid remarks about ‘private’ meetings with industry representatives in emails, which might be subject to information requests;
• gives recommendations on how to interpret requests as narrowly as possible;
• suggests staff use double reporting, with staff writing an official (‘factual’) meeting-report, which can be released under access to information requests, with a separate account kept of politically controversial issues, internal assessments and follow-up proposals, which will be exempted from disclosure.

Corporate Europe Observatory considers the briefing another outrageous chapter in DG Trade's long history of hiding its close ties with corporate lobbyists from public scrutiny.