Transparency in the EU
The Regulation 1049/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents (Public Access Regulation) can be described as being equivalent to the Swedish rules on public access to documents contained in the Freedom of the Press Act.
The Public Access Regulation gives citizens the fundamental right of access to all the documents, or parts of documents, of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission, provided that the information is not covered by the specified secrecy exceptions in the Regulation. The secrecy exceptions are by and large the same as those contained in the Swedish Freedom of the Press Act, i.e. protection of the public interest as regards public security, of privacy and integrity of the individual, etc.
The institutions have set up public registers of their documents. Via these registers, it is possible to gain access to a large number of documents on the institutions' websites without submitting a formal request for access to a document.
If a document is not available on an institution's website, or if for some other reason one would like to receive a copy of it, access can be requested by contacting the institution that holds the document. The institution is then obliged to make the document available if none of the secrecy exceptions contained in the Public Access Regulation applies to the information in the document. If only part of a document is protected by secrecy exceptions, the other parts must be made available.
