EU Commission Plans to Maximally Restrict Journalists’ Access to Its Information — Reports
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MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The European Commission, as part of its reform, may maximally restrict journalists’ access to documents and information about the work of the EU executive body, 16 journalistic organizations fear, according to a letter they sent to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Politico reported on Wednesday. The reform recommendations propose disclosing information to the press «where appropriate,» the report read. According to Committee to Protect Journalists representative Tom Gibson, such wording leaves the European Commission broad scope to classify everything except the cafeteria menu, Politico reported. The authors of the letter claim that the current system already prevents journalists from working fully: responses are delayed, access to documents is denied on dubious grounds, and published materials are heavily redacted. The journalists point out that they have encountered difficulties, for example, when trying to find out who received funds from the post-pandemic recovery fund, why the Commission withdrew a controversial patent bill, or what contacts it maintained with TikTok regarding the elections in Romania in 2024. The organizations’ demand include publishing data on the processing times for requests, complying with EU court rulings on transparency, and improving the registration and archiving of documents. The latter, in their opinion, would help avoid a repeat of the Pfizergate correspondence search saga. European Commission spokesman Thomas Regnier, in turn, told Politico that the Commission has not yet received the letter. He said that the EU executive body, which receives about seven thousand journalistic requests annually, takes its obligation to ensure transparency extremely seriously.
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