ACCESS TO INFORMATION: EP PRESIDENTS APPROVE INTER-INSTITUTIONAL AGREEMENT ON SENSITIVE DOCUMENTS.

Talks between the Parliament's head negotiator on the dossier, Elmar Brok (EPP, Germany), and the Council, notably through Spain's Secretary of State for European Affairs, Ramon de Miguel, almost broke down on several occasions. The IIA stipulates that the President of the European Parliament and the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs - namely Mr Brok - assisted by a "special committee" comprising four members appointed by the Conference of Presidents, should on the one hand have access on request or at the behest of the Council Secretary-General and High Representative for CFSP, to "top secret", "secret" and "confidential" documents, and on the other, consult the documents concerned on Council premises. Mr Brok finally agreed to this formula and, with the tacit approval of the two largest groups in the Parliament, the EPP and the PES, accepted the withdrawal of other provisions initially demanded by Parliament. The passage deleted would have authorised the President of the Parliament under his sole responsibility to transmit sensitive documents to all the members of the Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, and to distribute censored documents more widely according to the required degree of confidentiality.Buoyed by this concession by Parliament, the Committee of Member States' Permanent Representatives to the EU (COREPER) had reached agreement on May 30 when the Parliament suddenly made an about-turn on June 6. The smallest groups called for the reintroduction of the provision extending the rights of the Parliament's President. The offensive was above all driven by Graham Watson, President of the liberal ELDR group, not, it would seem, to support the actions of liberal Pat Cox at the head of the European Assembly, but in...