Alliance for transparency in the EU

Democracy International supports the campaign started by Access Info. The Spanish group is building up a broad alliance – together we raise our voice to get more influence for the EU citizens. Already on 11 April 2012, 3 European Information Commissioners, 76 Non-governmental organisations and 7 Civil Society Coalitions representing 349 organisations and 14 individuals have joined the campaign.

The 20 demands are presented to the Member State representatives working on the revision of the EU-Access-to-Documents-Regulation before each of their inter-governmental meetings.

Germany: Citizen Submission for more transparency

Also in the city of Hamburg organisations are working for more transparency. Last December 15.119 citizens signed a campaign aiming to introduce a law on transparency. If this law comes into force, the city will have very advanced regulations. The next step is again a signature gathering: From 27 August until 16 September around 62.000 supporters are needed to gain the right to hold a referendum on the issue. As the city is also one of the sixteen federal states in Germany, this would be a remarkable signal for the country.

This campaign was initiated by Mehr Demokratie, Transparency International and the Chaos Computer Club and is supported by several organisations and parties.

Democracy needs transparency: Citizens and even members of parliaments need full access to all relevant information to draw good decisions. Therefore, in an advanced democracy there should be only very few documents which are protected from public access.

More information about "Access info"