Access to Information in the European Union

The last fifteen years ‘transparency’ has been one of the central themes in the European integration process. By providing more openness about its activities, the European Union tries to bring itself closer to its citizens. Transparency is considered as one of the main methods to relieve the ‘democratic deficit’. One way of increasing transparency is to grant citizens a right to access to information. Another way is to actively publish information. Transparency is not an exclusive feature of European integration. On the contrary, inspiration for policies on access to information is mostly drawn from the sometimes longstanding experiences of the Member States. In 'Access to Information in the European Union; A Comparative Analysis of EC and Member State Legislation the authors try to achieve two goals. On the one hand, to provide for a detailed and useful overview of EC and Member State legislation in the field of access to information. On the other hand, to highlight the similarities and differences between national legislation of different Member States on the one hand, and between the EC rules and the national legislation on the other hand. This book addresses two questions in particular: are there any general differences between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ Member States? And, secondly, is the EU more or less transparent then the ‘average’ Member State? The answers the authors formulate on the basis of their research are - probably - not the ones one would expect.