EU freedom of information Stupid the lobbyist who now still writes E-Mails
Everyone in Europe has the right to access EU documents. But this does not apply to SMS and messenger messages in the future.
The EU Commission thus creates a huge gateway for intransparency and lobbying.
The EU Commission basically does not classify SMS and messages via messengers such as WhatsApp and Signal as documents – and thus exempts them from freedom of information. Such messages do not contain important information about the Commission’s policies and decisions, writes EU Commission Vice-President Věra Jourová in a response to a parliamentary question by Dutch MEP Sophie in ‘t Veld. They would therefore not have to be kept in the EU’s document archive, nor would they have to be handed over on request.
The question was prompted by a contract for 1.8 billion doses of vaccine with Pfizer. The billion-dollar deal was brokered by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen herself and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla in the spring – via phone calls and text messages, as the New York Times reported. Netzpolitik.org then made a request for the messages under the EU’s transparency law, Regulation 1049/2001 on access to documents.
The legal text is clear: The EU regulation explicitly refers to “content regardless of the form of the data carrier” in its definition of a document. This applies to documents on paper, but also in electronic form, as well as sound and image documents. This therefore includes not only text messages, but even TikTok videos.
So far, however, the Commission has refused to make a clear statement on SMS and Messenger messages. The rejection of our request said, “No documents falling within the scope of your request could be found.” No wonder messages are not classified as documents in the first place.
Recently, Commission Vice President Jourová announced new guidelines for document access. She said her team is working on clear criteria for when messages should be considered documents, as well as a technical solution to store such messages. But at the same time, Jourová said she did not believe Ursula von der Leyen or herself had ever made decisions about short messages “that are set in stone.” Rather, she said, they were “additional communications.”What would Merkel be without her text messages?
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According to current information, the Commission only wants to archive documents that relate to its work and are “important and not short-lived. The latter does not apply to text messages. But this is precisely where the argumentation becomes flimsy: because it is not possible to make such a sweeping statement. Just how significant such messages can be is revealed by the EU border protection agency Frontex. It recently released Whatsapp messages from its officials with the Libyan coast guard, in which they discussed boats of refugees off the coast.It seems equally significant when media report on collusion by the EU Commission on billion-dollar vaccine deals, as mentioned above, or when a bailout for Greece is agreed via SMS at an EU summit.In Germany, no one makes the relevance of cell phone messages clearer than Angela Merkel, whose chancellorship seems virtually unthinkable without SMS. But authorities in Germany are also resisting handing over their text messages. Von der Leyen’s refusal, as German defense minister, to hand over messages from her official cell phone to a parliamentary investigative committee even kept the judiciary busy.Now it is becoming clear: The commission under Von der Leyen wants to drastically limit transparency in the area. The general refusal to archive cell phone messages creates a loophole that is even visible from space. Public purchases worth billions, coordination between officials, exchanges with lobbyists – all these things can now take place in a non-transparent manner, without the public’s right of access. The EU Commission is thus taking a step backwards, far behind the principle of transparency that has been in place for more than two decades.
**It’s no longer just about 160 characters**
The Commission also ignores the changed communication behavior. Messenger messages are no longer 160-character mini-texts, but are increasingly replacing e-mail in the everyday life of public authorities. In messengers, you can attach documents, pictures and videos. Calling this now global form of message exchange just “additional communication” not only ignores what has happened in the last ten years. No, it is an auxiliary construction to disguise government action in the EU and to make it non-transparent.The Brussels authority is thus sending a dangerous signal: In times when corona deniers murmur about conspiracies of the powerful, and authoritarian governments in Hungary and Poland distribute billions of euros in EU money, the EU needs more transparency, more public participation, not less. When the medium becomes a flimsy excuse to restrict access to content, the Commission, on the other hand, even gives the authoritarians a model of how to hoodwink the public.
tl;dr In the EU you have the right to access EU documents.
The same bunch of politicians *accidently* deleting their phones once there’s an investigation about them now tells us that these phones don’t contain any information about discussions, policies or decisions…
We really need to stop deporting incompetent politicians to the EU as it seems they are often only bad at their job but not so bad when it’s about lies and shady deals.
3 comments
**English Text mostly machine translated**
**(TL;DR in the comments!)**
EU freedom of information Stupid the lobbyist who now still writes E-Mails
Everyone in Europe has the right to access EU documents. But this does not apply to SMS and messenger messages in the future.
The EU Commission thus creates a huge gateway for intransparency and lobbying.
The EU Commission basically does not classify SMS and messages via messengers such as WhatsApp and Signal as documents – and thus exempts them from freedom of information. Such messages do not contain important information about the Commission’s policies and decisions, writes EU Commission Vice-President Věra Jourová in a response to a parliamentary question by Dutch MEP Sophie in ‘t Veld. They would therefore not have to be kept in the EU’s document archive, nor would they have to be handed over on request.
The question was prompted by a contract for 1.8 billion doses of vaccine with Pfizer. The billion-dollar deal was brokered by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen herself and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla in the spring – via phone calls and text messages, as the New York Times reported. Netzpolitik.org then made a request for the messages under the EU’s transparency law, Regulation 1049/2001 on access to documents.
The legal text is clear: The EU regulation explicitly refers to “content regardless of the form of the data carrier” in its definition of a document. This applies to documents on paper, but also in electronic form, as well as sound and image documents. This therefore includes not only text messages, but even TikTok videos.
So far, however, the Commission has refused to make a clear statement on SMS and Messenger messages. The rejection of our request said, “No documents falling within the scope of your request could be found.” No wonder messages are not classified as documents in the first place.
Recently, Commission Vice President Jourová announced new guidelines for document access. She said her team is working on clear criteria for when messages should be considered documents, as well as a technical solution to store such messages. But at the same time, Jourová said she did not believe Ursula von der Leyen or herself had ever made decisions about short messages “that are set in stone.” Rather, she said, they were “additional communications.”What would Merkel be without her text messages?
​
According to current information, the Commission only wants to archive documents that relate to its work and are “important and not short-lived. The latter does not apply to text messages. But this is precisely where the argumentation becomes flimsy: because it is not possible to make such a sweeping statement. Just how significant such messages can be is revealed by the EU border protection agency Frontex. It recently released Whatsapp messages from its officials with the Libyan coast guard, in which they discussed boats of refugees off the coast.It seems equally significant when media report on collusion by the EU Commission on billion-dollar vaccine deals, as mentioned above, or when a bailout for Greece is agreed via SMS at an EU summit.In Germany, no one makes the relevance of cell phone messages clearer than Angela Merkel, whose chancellorship seems virtually unthinkable without SMS. But authorities in Germany are also resisting handing over their text messages. Von der Leyen’s refusal, as German defense minister, to hand over messages from her official cell phone to a parliamentary investigative committee even kept the judiciary busy.Now it is becoming clear: The commission under Von der Leyen wants to drastically limit transparency in the area. The general refusal to archive cell phone messages creates a loophole that is even visible from space. Public purchases worth billions, coordination between officials, exchanges with lobbyists – all these things can now take place in a non-transparent manner, without the public’s right of access. The EU Commission is thus taking a step backwards, far behind the principle of transparency that has been in place for more than two decades.
**It’s no longer just about 160 characters**
The Commission also ignores the changed communication behavior. Messenger messages are no longer 160-character mini-texts, but are increasingly replacing e-mail in the everyday life of public authorities. In messengers, you can attach documents, pictures and videos. Calling this now global form of message exchange just “additional communication” not only ignores what has happened in the last ten years. No, it is an auxiliary construction to disguise government action in the EU and to make it non-transparent.The Brussels authority is thus sending a dangerous signal: In times when corona deniers murmur about conspiracies of the powerful, and authoritarian governments in Hungary and Poland distribute billions of euros in EU money, the EU needs more transparency, more public participation, not less. When the medium becomes a flimsy excuse to restrict access to content, the Commission, on the other hand, even gives the authoritarians a model of how to hoodwink the public.
tl;dr In the EU you have the right to access EU documents.
In the spring EU President Von der Leyen and Albert Bourla of Pfizer had done a deal and this was also reported in the [New York Times.](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/28/world/europe/european-union-pfizer-von-der-leyen-coronavirus-vaccine.html)
[At the request to see those documents by Netzpolitik.org the EU comission replied: “No documents falling within the scope of your request could be found.”](https://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/exchange_between_president_von_d)
This happened because the EU comission [doesnt classify SMS and messages via messengers such as WhatsApp and Signal as documents](https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/P-9-2021-005139-ASW_EN.pdf) – and thus exempts them from freedom of information.
The same bunch of politicians *accidently* deleting their phones once there’s an investigation about them now tells us that these phones don’t contain any information about discussions, policies or decisions…
We really need to stop deporting incompetent politicians to the EU as it seems they are often only bad at their job but not so bad when it’s about lies and shady deals.