The European Court of Justice pursues greater EU transparency

On the 8 November 2007, the Court of First Instance annulled the Commission's denial to reveal the identities of all participants at a meeting involving representatives from the Commission (namely DG Internal Market and Services), the UK Department of Trade and Industry, and the Confederation des Brasseurs du Marché Commun.

Background

In May 1992, the Bavarian Lager Company applied to the European Commission in relation to an alleged violation of ex. Article 28 EC (Article 30 of the EC Treaty) exerted by the "guest beer provision" in UK legislation. The violation referred to the fermentation requirements that reflected almost exclusively beers produced in the UK. Hence, the applicant considered this measure as a "quantitative restriction" infringing the European Law. However, in April 1997, the EC suspended the procedure against the UK since the British Government had introduced an amendment to the "guest beer provision."

The core case

On 5 December 2003, the Bavarian Lager Company requested from the EC the full access to the minutes and the attendants' identities of a meeting held in October 1996 in which representatives from the Commission, the UK government and breweries were involved. In March 2004, the Commission refused to disclose the requested information and justified such a decision in line with privacy protection. In response to this refusal, the Bavarian Lager Company undertook legal action against the Commission's decision to suspend the procedure against the UK. Furthermore, the applicant proceeded against the denial of the documents requested in virtue of Article 2 of Regulation 1049/20011, which obliges the Commission to make full disclosure of the meeting's participants.

Judgment of the Court of First Instance

In reference to the procedure undertaken by the Bavarian Lager Company against the Commission, the Court content with the persons listed on the minutes of the contested meeting cannot be protected by privacy since they attended under the heading of the body that they represent. Therefore ' the exception for protection of the privacy and integrity of the persons concerned did not apply.' The Court also pointed out that the reasons provided by the Commission to justify its decision were insufficient since the disclosure of names did not clash with the objectives of investigations run by the Commission. According to these assumptions, the Court annulled the Commission's decision.

Implications: why the Court's sentence is so important

The Court's sentence has a huge impact on the European decision-making process and improves transparency in as much as:

The Commission has to provide specific reason s to oppose laws requiring the disclosure of determined information;
The Commission has to explain why the release of information would jeopardise one of its investigations;
Third parties could have easier access to information

The Bavarian Lager vs Commission Sentence can be downloaded from http://www.statewatch.org/news/2007/nov/ecj-bavarian-prel.pdf