ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS: PRESIDENCY SEEKS COMPROMISE BETWEEN MEMBER STATES AND MEPS.

Regarding the definition of documents suitable for transmission to the public, (Article 3 .a), Denmark has tabled a novel editorial solution whereby only documents issued by an institution and not institutions would be retained within the scope of the Regulation. This amendment, consisting of including the term "institutions" in the singular, is widely supported to the extent that documents circulating between institutions could no longer be regarded as strictly internal papers. A relatively large number of such documents currently exist, a situation unlikely to change unless existing methods of classification and dissemination, within the Council, the Parliament and the Commission are altered. However, the Netherlands continues to argue that the exclusion is too far-reaching since it would cover documents for internal use drafted in the context of preliminary consultations and deliberations.Discussions on the issue of sensitive documents (Article 3 .b) are focusing on documents classified as "top secret", "secret" or "confidential", in accordance with the rules of the Institution concerned, a British amendment draws particular attention to European security and defence policy documents. The Presidency would prefer to introduce the broader notion of "internal and external security" in order to take account both of security and defence policy and police co-operation (3rd pillar). Finland has also tabled a proposal to avoid the Council using this classification to prevent the transmission of a sensitive document to the Parliament. Documents classified as "sensitive" by one institution and transmitted to another should also be considered as such by that Institution, according to the Finnish amendment, which thus leaves the door open to an inter-institutional agreement on the transmission of sensitive documents, a significant bone of contention between the Council and Parliament. In this perspective, the United Kingdom has introduced a procedure for access by persons belonging to another institution than that which issued a sensitive document. The delegations remain divided, but discussions are making ground on these various elements.The list of possible exceptions to the general rule of transmission of documents accessible to the public (Article 4 .1 a 3) follows on to some extent from the previous debate. Access could be refused to documents dealing with "public security, defence and military issues" as well as with "international relations"...