Thanks for your comments and interest.

The ECJ ruling (which I was not aware of – thanks!) sounds like depressing, indeed. While none of us has time to turn into a full-time helpline, I personally cannot see the need for this kind of anonymity/data protection in a public institution.

As for the revision, we on the communication side are not really involved. It’s up to MEPs and their groups to give the political impetus, and Committee secretariats & legal service to check the legal feasibilities.

In case, here one EP policy department study fyi:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/activities/committees/studies/download.do?language=en&file=31293

Have a great summer!

I personally think there is a lot of information out there (not enough still), but it is really hard to find unless you are an expert in EU affairs and an expert in the particular registers (this includes searching parliamentary documents on your website). So I hope having a common register or intelligent links between documents in different registers will be possible sooner or later.

But I also really hope we can move forward on the recast of the access to documents regulation, and I also hope that more people like you inside the institutions will bring about a culture of openness beyond the mere legal questions we deal with in the political process.

However, speaking about legal questions, last week also brought a considerable setback “thanks” to the European Court of Justice, a judgement that MEP Cashman called “depressing”: http://blogs.euobserver.com/alfter/2010/07/02/black-tuesday-for-european-transparency/

Do you think you, who are inside the institutions, can actually help to make us move forward also on the legal side? Do you get asked during the process of the recast, e.g. regarding the technical possibilities of implementing a common register?

In any case, thanks again for the blog post!