Annex: the High Representative's response of 27
August 2012
"[Dear Gerald]
"Thank you for your letter of 3 July in which
you set out the difficulties of meeting your parliamentary scrutiny
obligations arising from Limité documents.
Such documents remain Limité until
a request is received to make them Public. This is done on a case-by-case
basis. The originator may also decide to make them Public regardless
of whether a request has been made or not. But this would need
to take into account the views of all Member States.
"For the future I propose that, once a document
of the European Defence Agency (EDA) has been agreed by the Council,
the EDA should routinely and quickly establish whether or not
it can be made Public and, if so, arrange with the originator
for it to be downgraded without delay. The EDA will also arrange
for the originator to include in its notification to the General
Secretariat of the Council (GSC) a request that the UK Representation
should be automatically informed once a document is published.
"Finally, you wanted to know why it took so
long for documents to be made public. The GSC advises that, apart
from legislative files, they only act upon request, be it a request
by a citizen or by the originator of a document. Up until now,
there has appeared to be no reason to make these documents public
ex officio, not least because, from an EU perspective,
there is nothing to prevent a national administration from giving
Limité documents to its parliament as long as they
are not published. For the future, however, and as I indicated
above, the GSC will accommodate the UK's need with regard to public
access to documents.
"[Sincerely,]
"[Cathy]
"Catherine Ashton"
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