EU Court Condemns the EU Legislative Process for Lack of Transparency: Time to Open Up?

Massimo Frigo, Senior Legal Adviser of the International Commission of Jurist’s Europe Programme*

It is sometimes cases on obscure administrative processes that become landmark judgments in the ever constant building of our democratic legal systems. In the US Marbury v. Madison was a case that at the time attracted little attention as the subject matter related to respect of procedures in judicial appointments. This notwithstanding it came to be the legal milestone of constitutional review in the US legal system.

In the European Union one of these cases was decided on 22 March: Emilio De Capitani v. Parliament. As it will be outlined below, it is a technical case that goes to the heart of the procedure of one of the fundamental institutions in a democracy: Parliament.

The EU legislative decision-making process

Unlike the United States, the European Union is not a State. However, it retains more and more competence to legislate in areas of everyday life and of crucial constitutional State prerogatives, including in the sphere of justice and home affairs that includes immigration, asylum, border control, and police cooperation.

The legislative process of the EU may be generally simplified in this way: the European Commission, i.e. a body of supposedly independent experts appointed by the European Council (see, the 28, soon 27, heads of State or government of its Member States) and approved by the European Parliament (the only institutions directly elected by EU citizens), has the initiative to table legislation.

Once the proposal is tabled it is the turn of the co-legislators to discuss it, amend it, approve it or reject it. At any moment the European Commission can withdraw the proposal and put an end to the process.

The EU legislators are the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union. The latter consists of the Governments, often in the configuration of the ministries relevant to the legislative piece to be discussed, of the EU Member States. These two bodies must agree on the legislative text, and its potential modifications, and approve it in the same form before it can become law. They can do it in one or two reading sessions.

In the last decades, since this procedure (once called “co-decision” and now the “ordinary legislative procedure”) came to exist, a practical solution to speed up the legislative procedure was found by holding what are called “trilogues”. These are closed meeting among representatives of the Council of the EU, the European Parliament and the European Commission to find a compromise and produce an agreed text that will have to be voted by their respective committees and plenaries into law.

The practice of these trilogues is that no one from the public has access to them nor to any document on the proposed suggestions for compromise. Furthermore, when an agreement is reached, statistically, both the Parliament and the Council almost always approve the agreed compromise into law without further amendments. It is therefore a key moment in the legislative process. And it is absolutely foreclosed to EU citizens and civil society.

The case

Mr De Capitani brought a challenge to the General Court of the European Union, the judicial body competent for cases against EU institutions at first instance, because Parliament, after having consulted the Council and the Commission, refused him access to the part of a document in the legislative process. Specifically this part of the document is the fourth column in a tabled document that reports the compromises reached or suggested during the trilogues, while the first three of them include the original proposal and the positions of the institutions.

The judgment

The General Court ruled that, “contrary to what the Council maintains …, … the trilogue tables form part of the legislative process.” (para 75, , De Capitani)

It pointed out that

78. … it is precisely openness in the legislative process that contributes to conferring greater legitimacy on the institutions in the eyes of EU citizens and increasing their confidence in them by allowing divergences between various points of view to be openly debated. It is in fact rather a lack of information and debate which is capable of giving rise to doubts in the minds of citizens, not only as regards the lawfulness of an isolated act, but also as regards the legitimacy of the decision-making process as a whole … .

The Court dismissed the EU institutions’ exception that non-disclosure was necessary because the document dealt with a draft law in the area of police cooperation. The Court very strongly ruled that

89… the fact … that the documents at issue relate to the area of police cooperation cannot per se suffice in demonstrating the special sensitivity of the documents. To hold otherwise would mean exempting a whole field of EU law from the transparency requirements of legislative action in that field.

Furthermore the Court stressed that

90…. the documents at issue concern a proposal for a draft regulation, of general scope, binding in all of its elements and directly applicable in all the Member States, which naturally concerns citizens, all the more so since at issue here is a legislative proposal directly affecting the rights of EU citizens, inter alia their right to personal data protection …, from which it follows that the legislative proposal could not be regarded as sensitive by reference to any criterion whatsoever … .

The Court then dealt with the assertion that access to these documents could increase public pressure on the representatives of the EU institutions involved in the trilogue procedure:

98… in a system based on the principle of democratic legitimacy, co-legislators must be held accountable for their actions to the public. If citizens are to be able to exercise their democratic rights they must be in a position to follow in detail the decision-making process within the institutions taking part in the legislative procedures and to have access to all relevant information … Thus, the expression of public opinion in relation to a particular provisional legislative proposal or agreement agreed in the course of a trilogue and reflected in the fourth column of a trilogue table forms an integral part of the exercise of EU citizens’ democratic rights, particularly since … such agreements are generally subsequently adopted without substantial amendment by the co-legislators.

Finally, while allowing still the possibility for certain situations (“duly justified cases”) of non-disclosure for co-legislators, including Parliament (para 112, De Capitani), the Court closed by rejecting also the argument raised by Parliament that making public documents of the trilogue would have taken away the nature of these meetings as a “space to think” . The Court unmistakably reminded Parliament that these meetings are essential parts of the legislative procedure and not “spaces to think” and as such must be subject to the required level of publicity (para 105, De Capitani).

Conclusion: a more democratic EU?

The European Union does not enjoy today the best image in terms of transparency, accountability and democratic processes. Its institutions have been openly attacked from many different quarters for their lack of transparency and the bureaucratic nature of their procedures. Most of these attacks are populist fear-mongering that simply aims at finding a scapegoat to gain political traction, votes and, hence, power. However, as we have seen, some critiques of the EU structure cannot be simply dismissed as political nonsense and one of them is about the legislative process in the EU that affects the lives of almost 500 million people.

The De Capitani ruling throws a breath of fresh air to these institutions and, importantly, demonstrates that, while some institutions of the EU may be criticised for lack of transparency and obedience to the rule of law, there are institutions, notably the EU courts, that can address the problem within.

This ruling can still be subject to appeal before the Court of Justice of the EU. In the meantime and this notwithstanding, the crucial question is whether and how the ruling will be implemented. Will the Parliament, the Council, i.e. the Governments of the Member States, and the Commission open up to democratic scrutiny in legislative process?

The answer to this question will be vital for the EU to withstand any criticism that it does not obey the rule of law and democratic accountability. This is why this case is a turning point for the EU rule of law structure. Much of the legitimacy of the EU as a rule of law based supra-national organisation lies in what its institutions are going to do next. And we’d better be watching…

*Reblogged with permission from the Opinio Juris blog

Barnard & Peers: chapter 5, chapter 9

Photo credit: Walsall College

On knowledge as power: transparency of EU law-making procedures

Päivi Leino (University of Helsinki)

One of the great achievements of the Lisbon Treaty, flagged around its adoption and entry into force, was how the new Treaty would make EU law-making much more transparent. So far, this has remained an unfulfilled promise. Access to documents relating to the EU legislative procedure, in particular trilogues, the informal three-party meetings between the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission used at every stage of the EU legislative procedure, has become particularly topical during the past months.  First, the new Interinstitutional agreement (IIA) on Better Regulation, provisionally approved in December 2015, addresses this question.[1] Second, on 15 December 2015, Emily O’Reilly, European Ombudsman, launched a public consultation on transparency of trilogues,[2] stressing their role as the forum where the deals are done and the subsequent need to consider the proper trade-off between the Europeans’ right to open EU law-making processes and the space to negotiate. Finally, Emilio De Capitani, the previous head of the LIBE Committee Secretariat, has brought an appeal against the European Parliament’s decision to refuse full access documents relating to a legislative proposal.[3] De Capitani argues in essence that granting access to them would not specifically, effectively and in a non-hypothetical manner undermine the legislative decision-making process, and that notably after the Lisbon Treaty, legislative preparatory documents are subject to the principle of widest possible access.

The recent events raise a number of fundamental questions relating to how we understand the function of transparency in law-making that claims democratic foundations. Moreover, since EU law-making is currently not backed up by any shared interinstitutional space where documents and meeting schedules would be recorded in real time, following legislative procedures requires a serious amount of detective work for those with an interest in following them, and increases reliance on a culture of leaks. In brief, exercising your democratic rights should not be this difficult.

The legal framework of law-making in the EU

The main principle in the Treaty of Lisbon is clear: the Council and the European Parliament are to legislate in the open, and are under an obligation to ensure the publication of the documents relating to the legislative procedures. Regulation No 1049/2001 includes some references to legislative documents. Under Article 12(2), legislative documents meaning “documents drawn up or received in the course of procedures for the adoption of acts which are legally binding in or for the Member States” should be made directly accessible unless one of the exceptions under the Regulation is applicable. Therefore, making these documents publicly available should not presume specific requests but should instead take place automatically. These provisions have been subject to the Court’s landmark ruling in Turco concerning access to Council legal service opinions, which stresses how increased openness

enables citizens to participate more closely in the decision-making process and guarantees that the administration enjoys greater legitimacy and is more effective and more accountable to the citizen in a democratic system. Those considerations are clearly of particular relevance where the Council is acting in its legislative capacity […]. Openness in that respect contributes to strengthening democracy by allowing citizens to scrutinize all the information which has formed the basis of a legislative act. The possibility for citizens to find out the considerations underpinning legislative action is a precondition for the effective exercise of their democratic rights.[4]

In the ruling, the Court set the threshold high in referring to ‘all the information which has formed the basis for a legislative act’: it is clearly not only quantity that is of relevance, but also quality. The legislature needs to provide access to information concerning the key elements on the legislative agenda while the relevant process is on-going and there is a chance to influence it.

However, the institutions, and the Council in particular, have had difficulties with maintaining this standard and turned to a vast number of excuses that risk to water down the principle in rather fundamental ways.[5] In the Council’s view, the application of the Treaty provisions stipulating the publicity of its meeting are restricted to documents that are submitted to the Council for the preparation of the latter’s deliberation or vote.[6] This raises the rather fundamental question of the relevance of the stage of decision-making for the application of legislative transparency. The Council understanding would seem to deprive the principle of much of its democratic effet utile; If the publicity of legislative documents was indeed limited to only those documents that are issued a couple of days before a formal ministerial meeting where a legislative file is to be deliberated or approved, often without any discussion, then transparency would only be applied at the point when the file is to be closed and the process is over. This would effectively hamper access to documents produced during the time when the majority of questions are settled at lower decision-making levels between civil servants, ambassadors and the three institutions. The Council has also argued that the early stage of the legislative process between the institutions, namely first reading, is a point to be taken into consideration. [7] At the same time, a major part of legislative files are closed specifically at first reading: For example in 2009-2013, 83 % of legislative files were closed at first reading, 8 % during early second, 7 % at second, and only 3 % at third.[8]

The relevant provision in Regulation No 1049/2001 in this regard is the ‘space to think’ exception in Article 4(3), relating to situations where a decision has not yet been taken by the institution. The Parliament has repeatedly voiced the argument that the said provision is outdated as far as legislative matters are concerned,[9] and suggested both that no exception would ever apply to ‘documents transmitted within the framework of procedures leading to a legislative act or a non-legislative act of general application’ but also the deletion of Article 4(3) altogether.[10] The latter is a far-reaching proposal that might benefit from further reflection considering that the exception has been used for varying purposes outside the legislative context.

However, Article 4(3) was interpreted in the post-Lisbon legislative context by the Court when Access Info Europe, an NGO promoting freedom of information in the EU, requested access to a legislative document including footnotes indicating the positions of individual Member States. The central question was whether access to Member State positions distracts the effectiveness of decision-making and if yes, which one should take priority, effectiveness or openness. The Council lost the case in the General Court and appealed to the Court of Justice[11] arguing that the General Court’s reading had attached ‘undue and excessive weight to the transparency of the decision-making process, without taking any account of the needs associated with the effectiveness of that process’, and disregarded the balanced approach laid down both in primary law and secondary law between the two objectives. The Council argued that ‘its legislative process is very fluid and requires a high level of flexibility on the part of Member States so that they can modify their initial position, thus maximising the chances of reaching an agreement’. In the Council’s view, identifying the delegations was not necessary for ensuring a democratic debate. The CJEU rejected this with reference to how full access can be limited only if there is a genuine risk that the protected interests might be undermined. The high standard of proof required to establish that level of harm makes it almost impossible to rely on Article 4(3) in this context. In particular, according to the Court,

the various proposals for amendment or re-drafting made by the four Member State delegations which are described in the requested document are part of the normal legislative process, from which it follows that the requested documents could not be regarded as sensitive – not solely by reference to the criterion concerning the involvement of a fundamental interest of the European Union or of the Member States, but by reference to any criterion whatsoever (para 63).

So far, the Court has stood rather firm in promoting transparency of core legislative documents,[12] and is likely to have a word or two to say in the De Capitani case. However, its rulings are of a limited importance as long as it is accepted that the institutions may apply them selectively.[13]

Access to trilogue documents

Trilogues are increasingly taking over as the main forum for making legislative deals between the three institutions.[14] They are the prime example of informal decision-making, which is often glorified in the EU context as the tool guaranteeing efficient law-making.[15] In first reading deals trilogues function as the forum for interinstitutional agreement. The Treaties make no reference to this forum. In the joint declaration on practical arrangements for the co-decision procedure adopted in 2007, the three institutions argue that the trilogue ‘system has demonstrated its vitality and flexibility in increasing significantly the possibilities for agreement at first and second reading stages’. According to the declaration, trilogues ‘may be held at all stages of the procedure and at different levels of representation, depending on the nature of the expected discussion’.[16] The use of informal formats is not in any way restricted to technical, urgent or uncontested files.[17] Trilogues are an incredibly efficient format for accommodating institutional positions, and have led to a great majority of deals being closed early in the legislative procedure.

During the trilogue phase, the EU democratic process is in the hands of very few: the European Parliament rapporteur(s), the representatives of the Council Presidency and Secretariat and a few Commission officials. This phase largely escapes public scrutiny. The joint declaration quoted above stipulates that ‘trilogues taking place within the European Parliament and Council shall be announced, where practicable’, and ‘when conclusion of a dossier at first reading is imminent, information on the intention to conclude an agreement should be made readily available as soon as possible’. There is no mention of access to information while the process is in the substantive phase. Civil society representatives have, for a very good reason, pointed out how trilogues represent the victory of efficient law-making over the formal machinery of law-making, which results in a general lack of transparency.[18]

The informal arrangements surrounding trilogues not only affect public access, but also access within the institutions. Information is power, and the trilogue format empowers those that possess it at the expense of those who do not. Political scientists have demonstrated how within the Parliament, first reading agreements emphasise the discretion given to its own rapporteur(s)[19] and stress the role of responsible committee. Handing out information is in the hands of the rapporteurs, whose tweets commenting on the conduct of negotiations also create a practical avenue to information for many Member State governments. As far as the Council is concerned, first reading agreements mean in practice that deals are effectively concluded before they reach the ministers, since the Council position is settled by Coreper. In principle, feedback from trilogues is given to the delegations either through working parties or Coreper. National parliaments often experience difficulties following decision-making in trilogies, especially since amendments are made at great speed, which hinders their effective scrutiny at national level.[20]

Ombudsman inquiry and the new IIA

The European Ombudsman initiative is therefore timely, even if the objective of ensuring transparency in the legislative procedure reaches beyond its current scope. Last May, the Ombudsman approached the three institutions about their proactive disclosure policies on trilogue documents.[21] In his reply to the Ombudsman, Martin Schultz, President of the European Parliament, describes the current trilogue-related practices in the Parliament, but focuses on its internal transparency and accountability, which he sees as requiring that all political groups may follow and influence the negotiations. This speaks against an undue formalisation of the trilogue process. The Commission challenges the Ombudsman’s mandate to engage in the own-initiative inquiry altogether. In its view, trilogues are a

preparatory step in negotiations of a purely legislative nature and it is hard to see how any aspect of their conduct, such as whether or when to hold trilogue meetings, the choice of representatives by each institution to attend trilogue meetings, whether or which supporting documents to produce etc., can give rise to maladministration, except as regards questions related to public access to the documents used during trilogue meetings.

In its reply, the Commission stresses the internal nature of any possible briefing documents and lack of systematic records of what takes place during the trilogues. And the Council, not surprisingly, agrees with the Commission:

The Council is of the view that the exercise of legislative powers is not limited to the adoption of political choices on the merits of legislative files. It also includes the choices according to which the legislators decide to organise the legislative process itself. The organisation of the legislative process cannot be considered an administrative activity – and therefore cannot give rise to possible instances of maladministration – but ought rather to be regarded as an essential aspect of the exercise of the legislators’ prerogatives.

In other words, hands off legislative transparency, European Ombudsman. And yet, it is difficult to think of a matter where issues relating to access to documents and information in the broad sense would be more vital in a union that is tackling a permanent democratic and legitimacy deficit.  

In the new IIA, provisionally concluded in December 2015, the Commission proposal on how the ‘three institutions will ensure an appropriate degree of transparency of the legislative process, including of trilateral negotiations between the three institutions’[22] is strengthened. The three institutions now commit to ensuring ‘the transparency of legislative procedures, on the basis of relevant legislation and case-law, including an appropriate handling of trilateral negotiations’. For this purpose, they ‘improve communication to the public during the whole legislative cycle’ and ’undertake to identify, by 31 December 2016, ways of further developing platforms and tools to this end, with a view to establishing a dedicated joint database on the state of play of legislative files’.[23] While promises carry little weight if institutional attitudes remain unchanged, the latter commitment could contribute not only making more documents available earlier in the process and making their identification easier, also to shedding light on the vast number of legislative documents that are currently not made public while the process is pending.

In more than one way, the recent debates illustrate how knowledge is power; therefore, those that are in possession of it are unlikely to volunteer to distribute it. In this respect, what we need is a much more political debate on the way in which the exercise of democratic rights is effectively exhausted, often in practice through the choices of technocrats in the EU institutions, who make choices about how individual requests for documents are answered and which documents are placed on the web. Are the current institutional politics acceptable, or are they not? And more fundamentally, is efficiency such an overarching value that it triumphs in all circumstances over all other objectives, such as securing a transparent and democratic decision-making process?

Photo credit: pressgazette.co.uk

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[1] Provisional text of the proposed interinstitutional agreement on better regulation, dated 16 December 2015, available at http://ec.europa.eu/smart-regulation/better_regulation/documents/20151215_iia_on_better_law_making_en.pdf, Article 28-28a.

[2] http://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/press/release.faces/en/61593/html.bookmark .

[3] Case T-540/15, De Capitani v European Parliament.

[4] Joined Cases C-39/05 P and C-52/05 P Kingdom of Sweden and Maurizio Turco v the Council, paras 45-46 

[5] See also Päivi Leino, “Transparency, Participation and EU Institutional Practice: An Inquiry into the Limits of the ‘Widest Possible’”, EUI Working Paper (LAW 3/2014). Available at http://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/30580/LAW_2014_03_Leino.pdf .

[6] See the Council reply to Confirmatory application No 05/c/01/12 by Ms Anneli Jäätteenmäki, MEP.

[7] For the Council’s reply to ClientEarth, see http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/10/st12/st12068.en10.pdf . 

[8] The figures can be found on the Parliament’s website http://www.europarl.europa.eu/code/about/statistics_en.htm . 

[9] The ‘Hautala / Sargentini report’, Public access to documents 2009-2010 European Parliament resolution of 14 September 2011 on public access to documents (Rule 104(7)) for the years 2009-2010 (2010/2294(INI)) P7_TA(2011)0378. 

[10] Public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents (recast), P6_TA(2009)0114 A6-0077/2009 . 

[11] C-280/11 P Council v Access Info Europe. 

[12] Even if the General Court recently made a true bummer relating to impact assessments, which play a key role in the early stages of the legislative procedure; see T-424/14 ClientEarth v. the Commission.

[13] See Päivi Leino, “Transparency, Participation and EU Institutional Practice: An Inquiry into the Limits of the ‘Widest Possible’”, EUI Working Paper (LAW 3/2014); available at http://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/30580/LAW_2014_03_Leino.pdf

[14] ‘Shifting EU Institutional Reform into High Gear: Report of the CEPS High-level Group’, pp. 1-24, Report available at http://www.ceps.eu/book/shifting-eu-institutional-reform-high-gear-report-ceps-high-level-group .

[15] See in greater detail, Päivi Leino “The Politics of Efficient Compromise in the Adoption of EU Legal Acts” in Marise Cremona (Ed.), EU Legal Acts: Challenges and Transformations, Collected Courses of the Academy of European Law (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2016.)

[16] Joint declaration on practical arrangements for the Codecision procedure. OJ 2007 C 145/02 .

[17] See Bressanelli, Héritier, Koop and Reh, ‘The Informal Politics of Codecision: Introducing a New Data Set on Early Agreements in the European Union’, EUI Working Papers RSCAS 2014/64.

[18] See e.g. Bunyan, ‘European Parliament: Abolish 1st [and 2nd] reading secret deals – bring back democracy ‘warts and all’’, Statewatch analysis available at: http://www.statewatch.org/analyses/no-84-ep-first-reading-deals.pdf

[19] Discussed in Hix and Hoyland, ‘Empowerment of the European Parliament’, 16 Annu. Rev. Polit.Sci (2013) 171, at 184. For rules concerning the Parliament’s representation and position-building, see European Parliament Rules of Procedure, Rule 70.

[20] House of Lords Report with Evidence. Codecision and national parliamentary scrutiny, HL Paper 125 (2009) 15-16.

[21] The opinions are available on the Ombudsman website, http://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/cases/correspondence.faces/en/61592/html.bookmark .

[22] Proposal for an Interinstitutional Agreement on Better Regulation, COM(2015) 216 final.

[23]  Provisional text of the proposed interinstitutional agreement on better regulation, dated 16 December 2015, available at http://ec.europa.eu/smart-regulation/better_regulation/documents/20151215_iia_on_better_law_making_en.pdf . 

Leaked document reveals EU plans to suspend Schengen for two years

Comments by Steve Peers

The following is Council document 14300/15, dated 1 December 2015. It's entitled 'Integrity of the Schengen area', and addressed to Coreper (the body consisting of Member States' representatives to the EU) and the Council - presumably the Member States' Justice and Home Affairs ministers meeting Thursday 3 and Friday 4 December. (For a more official version of the same document, see here).

The first three parts are relatively unexceptional (for some discussion, see here), but part 4 calls for the start of a process to officially allow the reimposition of internal border controls in the Schengen area for up to two years. Legally, this has to be triggered by 'serious deficiencies' in the border control of a particular Member State.

This has been reported as a plan to suspend Schengen as regards Greece. But the wording of the document suggests a much broader intention - applying to the whole of Schengen. This intention is clear from the reference to continuing in force the border controls that many Member States have imposed this autumn, which can only be imposed for a maximum period of six months. The purpose of using the 'serious deficiencies' clause, instead of the normal clause on suspending Schengen, is clearly to allow a much longer suspension period. It may be that not every internal border would be subject to checks, but the intention seems to be to issue a blank cheque to this effect.

More on the legal details (and whether this is even legal at all) in the parallel blog post.

Document follows:

INTRODUCTION

The migratory and refugee crisis has put the application of the Schengen acquis and of the asylum acquis under severe pressure during the last years, with an unprecedented influx of migrants over the last months. In this context, several Member States have temporarily reintroduced border control at their internal borders, with reference to a serious threat to public policy or internal security as provided for by the Schengen Borders Code. Temporary controls at internal borders have also been carried out by a Member State for reasons related to terrorism, following the attacks in Paris on 13 November 2015. In addition, some Member States have taken specific measures to reinforce the control at their external borders.

In its Conclusions of 9 November 2015 on measures to handle the refugee and migration crisis, the Council has identified a number of measures to implement fully the orientations already agreed by the European Council [1]. These measures address a wide range of issues, including in particular reception capacities, hotspots, relocation, return, readmission, resettlement,  lack of cooperation of migrants, contingency planning, the functioning of the Schengen area, external and internal borders, smuggling in human beings, visa policy, a common information strategy and the use of the Integrated Political Crisis Response (IPCR).

In the Conclusions adopted on 20 November 2015 on Counter-Terrorism after the Paris terrorist attacks by the Council and Member States meeting within the Council it was agreed to implement reinforced measures for the purpose of fighting terrorism, including strengthening controls at external borders[2].

Under point 9 of its Conclusions of 9 November 2015, the Council decided "to conduct at the December Justice and Home Affairs Council, on the basis of the 8th bi-annual reporting by the Commission, a thorough debate on the functioning of the Schengen area (1 May 2015 - 31 October 2015) and on the lessons learned from temporary reintroductions of controls at internal borders".

In Coreper on 26 November 2015 the Commission indicated, however, that the said 8th bi-annual report would not be ready for the meeting of the JHA Council in December 2015, but would be integrated in the future border package. The Presidency concluded that Ministers would be invited to hold a debate on the functioning of the Schengen area on the basis of a Presidency paper.

With a view to preparing this debate, the Presidency issued a questionnaire on lessons learned from temporary introductions of controls at internal borders [3]. The Presidency has prepared the present paper in the light of replies from Member States, having in mind also major issues that have been raised during recent months regarding the functioning of the Schengen area, with a focus on border controls.

ISSUES FOR DISCUSSION

The Presidency invites the Council to hold a debate on the functioning of the Schengen area and to address in particular the following issues related to internal and external border controls.

1. Consultations between Member States – Based on the information available to the Presidency, it appears that, in situations where some Member States have applied recently Article 25 of the Schengen Borders Code to reinstate temporarily controls at internal borders, there has not been sufficient prior consultation with other Member States.  The same has been noticed for technical reinforcement of borders between border crossing points, for changes in national policies leading to filter migrants at border crossing points and for organizing the transit of migrants from one border to next.  This has severely hindered the possibility for neighbouring countries to prepare themselves for changes in migratory routes and for all Schengen countries to handle migratory flows in a coherent manner.

In addition, procedures approved by Coreper in March 2015 for improved information sharing on temporary reintroduction of border controls at internal borders have not been fully respected in all cases.

The Presidency proposes that:

-           even in emergency situations falling under Article 25 of the Schengen Borders Code and requiring immediate action, a Member State deciding to temporarily reintroduce internal border controls should make all efforts to inform neighbouring Member States sufficiently in advance to allow neighbouring Member States to adjust to the new situation and, where possible, to cooperate to reduce the negative impact of the reintroduction of internal border controls;

-           Member States reconfirm their commitment to fully apply the procedures for improved information sharing on temporary reintroduction of border controls at internal borders agreed in Coreper in March 2015. [4]

2. Securing external borders – A number of irregular migrants entering the EU, or exiting an EU country to re-enter later in the EU, pass through the so-called "green land borders" (the parts of the land borders between border crossing points). According to Frontex, more than 1,2 million illegal border crossings have been detected at the EU external borders for January - October 2015, an increase of 431% compared with the corresponding period in 2014. In addition, a number of illegal crossings have not been registered. The exact figure is unknown.

Also in the context of the fight against terrorism, the Council concluded on 20 November 2015 that control at the external borders which are most exposed should be strengthened "in particular by deploying, when the situation so requires, rapid border intervention teams (RABITs) and police officers in order to ensure systematic screening and security checks". 

In view of the critical situation that the EU is currently confronted with, the Presidency proposes that:

-           considerably more efforts should be made to prevent illegal border crossings (entry and exit) through the external "green land borders" and to ensure that external borders are crossed only at the border crossing points referred to in Article 4, subject to the exceptions in Article 4(2), of the Schengen Borders Code;

-           RABITs are deployed as necessary for that purpose. This is at present  particularly relevant for external land borders in relation to the Western Balkan countries route;

-           A Frontex operation at the northern borders of Greece be deployed without delay to address severe difficulties encountered with neighbouring countries.

3. Increasing checks regarding illegal migration – Irregular migrants who have entered the Schengen area and have not been registered at their arrival should not be able to stay in that area undetected for long periods of time.

The Presidency proposes that:

-           the possibilities for checking persons inside the Schengen area, including by the use of relevant databases, are fully exploited to ensure that irregular migrants are detected and registered and their cases processed.

4. Addressing serious deficiencies in external border controls – Several Member States have recently reintroduced temporarily internal border control pursuant to Articles 23-25 of the Schengen Borders Code. Under these provisions, a Member State may not implement such controls for more than a total period of six months. A prolongation of this situation would require the adoption by the Council, upon a proposal from the Commission, of a recommendation in accordance with Article 26 of the Schengen Borders Code. Such recommendation may be adopted in exceptional circumstances to address a situation where a Schengen evaluation has identified persistent serious deficiencies relating to external border control and the measures referred to in Article 19a of the Schengen Borders Code are not effective. Where in such cases the overall functioning of the area without internal border control is put at risk, and insofar as the exceptional circumstances constitute a serious threat to public policy or internal security within the area without internal border control or within parts thereof, the period for the reintroduction of internal border control may be extended up to a total maximum of two years.

On this basis, the Presidency:

-           proposes that the Council invites the Commission to consider presenting a proposal as appropriate pursuant to Article 26 of the Schengen Borders Code for a Council recommendation that one or more Member States decide to reintroduce border control at all or at specific parts of their internal borders;

-           considers that, at the same time, all possible measures should be taken aimed at strengthening the normal functioning of the Schengen area, in particular by reinforcing the control of external borders.

Photo credit: Sputniknews.com
Barnard & Peers: chapter 26

Access to documents: the Council might not implement a key CJEU judgment

Steve Peers

The EU is often accused by critics of a lack of openness and transparency – and often such criticisms are justified. This is particularly the case as regards the EU legislative process. In principle, this process ought to resemble the open process seen in national legislatures, with full public access to the drafts of legislation that passes through the legislative chamber(s).

However, despite the adoption of a general Regulation on access to documents in 2001, this aspect (among others) of EU transparency is problematic. The reason for this is that, within the Council, some Member States wish to keep their positions secret, at least while the negotiations are ongoing. Of course, this profoundly undermines the argument that citizens of each Member States, via national parliaments, can hold each individual government accountable for its action within the Council. For some Member States, though, accountability would bring embarrassment.

The CJEU, in accordance with its prior case law emphasising the importance of transparency in the EU legislative process, ruled in the Open Access Info judgment last year that the names of Member States in principle had to be released to the public. This ruling would seem to be straightforward enough. But the Council is trying to wriggle out of it.

According to an internal Council document discussed by Member States’ EU ambassadors (Coreper) last week, the Council is considering three options: referring always to Member State positions; making no reference to Member State positions; or continuing an unsystematic approach to this issue. The first option (full transparency) is rejected, because it sometimes this will not be ‘appropriate’, ie it might embarrass Member States. The second option is rejected, because it will be useful to have a record of Member States’ positions. So the suggestion is for the third option.

If this third option is chosen, what seems likely to result is that whenever a Member State believes that its position might be embarrassing, it will ask that there should be no listing of its name in the footnotes. Moreover, the Council document does not foresee any active transparency, ie disclosing a document with Member States’ positions as soon as it is drawn up. The new rules (when agreed) will only apply to documents when an individual requests a copy of them. By the time that the Council replies to such a request, discussions on a particular issue could have moved on and so there will not be an opportunity to have a public debate on whether a particular Member State’s position is justified.

So the whole process of challenging the Council in Court as regards this crucial aspect of EU legislative decision-making is ultimately likely to have only limited practical effect. Perhaps the next step in this battle will have to be non-judicial: either a demand by the European Parliament that the Council open up its legislative proceedings further (or at the very least, that both institutions open up the secretive ‘trialogue’ process); or a complaint to the European Ombudsman that the Council should proactively make all its legislative documents public without individual request.

Barnard & Peers: chapter 3, chapter 8