Public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents

In a Decision on making certain categories of Council documents available to the public, all the documents which may be made available to the public are precisely defined. Thus, in virtue of this Decision (2001/320/EC of the Council), the Secretariat General shall make the following documents available to the public as soon as they have been circulated: - documents of which neither the Council nor a Member State is the author, which have been made public by their author or with his agreement; - provisional agenda of meetings of the Council in its various formations; - any text adopted by the Council and intended to be published in the Official Journal of the European Communities; - provisional agenda of committees and working parties; information notes, reports, progress reports and reports on the state of discussions in the Council or one of its preparatory bodies which do not reflect individual positions of delegations, excluding Legal Service opinions and contributions. However, at the request of a Member State, documents which are covered by the preceding subparagraph and reflect the individual position of that Member State in the Council, shall not be made available to the public under this Decision. The Decision also consists of a chapter which details specific rules for legislative documents. Cover notes and copies of letters concerning legislative acts addressed to the Council by other institutions or bodies of the European Union or, by a Member State; notes submitted to Coreper and/or to the Council for approval, as well as the draft legislative acts to which they refer and decisions adopted by the Council during the codecision procedure which may also be made public. The General Secretariat shall make available to the public any legislative documents relating to this act which were drawn up before this decision and which are not covered by any of the exceptions laid down in Article 4(1) of Decision 93/731/EC, such as information notes, reports, progress reports and reports on the state of discussions in the Council or in one of its preparatory bodies ("outcomes of proceedings"),excluding Legal Service opinions and contributions. ENTRY INTO FORCE : this Decision shall take effect on 1 May 2001.�