Increasing Transparency in the European Union?

The concept of transparency played a considerable role during negotiations leading towards the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty, and has never been absent from the European political scene since.
The EU institutions and the Member States have often expressed their intention to render the decision-making process more open and more understandable for citizens and to provide systematic access to all available EU information. Following the Treaty of Amsterdam, a regulation on access to EU documents was adopted in 2001, providing new guidelines on the matter. This book is the result of a conference organised shortly afterwards by the European Institute of Public Administration - the second conference organised by EIPA on the theme of transparency in the EU. It takes stock of all developments in recent years concerning openness, transparency and access to documents. The contributions to this book, written by academics, European civil servants and journalists, provide a complete survey of the state of the art and provide insights into likely future developments.