§ Mr. BercowTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what proportion of European Community documents are (i) not public documents and (ii) not publicly released as a matter of course though of an unrestricted nature. [59800]
§ Ms QuinA number of European Community documents are automatically placed in the public domain, for example. Commission proposals, Council common positions and Council press releases. All other Council documents can be requested by the public under the conditions of Council Decision 93/731/EC of 20 December 1993. Equivalent arrangements exist for other institutions. All applications are treated on a case-by-case basis. In 1997, 2,431 Council documents were requested, of which 78.3 per cent. were released.
§ Mr. BercowTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will place in the Library a list of requests for access to documents of the European Communities by members of the public which were not granted in 1997, together with the reasons for refusal. [59794]
§ Ms QuinA review of implementation of Council Decision 93/731/EC on Public access to Council documents is produced every two years. This lists the statistics on requests for access to documents and the reasons for refusal. In 1997, requests were made for 2,431 417W documents and access was refused to 528 of these documents. Statistics on the invoking of reasons for refusal of access under Decisions 93/731 for 1996–97 are contained in the Council review, copies of which I am placing in the Libraries of the House.
§ Mr. BercowTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will support the establishment of a register of unrestricted European Community documents. [59801]
§ Ms QuinDuring their Presidency in the first half of 1998, the UK Government pressed for a public register of Council documents (both European Community and European Union) to be established. We expect the register to be up and running at the beginning of 1999.