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20 Eur. L.J. 1 (2014)

handle is hein.journals/eurlj20 and id is 1 raw text is: European Law Journal, Vol. 20, No. 1, January 2014, pp. 1 20. C 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA Transparency in the EU Council of Ministers: An Institutional Analysis Maarten Zbigniew Hillebrandt, Deirdre Curtin and Albert Meijer* Abstract: The development of access to documents and open meetings provisions by the Council of Ministers of the European Union shows an interesting pattern: before 1992 no formal transparency provisions existed, between 1992 and 2006 formal transparency provisions dramatically increased, and since 2006 this increase has come to a halt. This paper aims to enhance our understanding of these shifts by conducting a historical institutional analysis of policy change. As explanatory factors, we consider the prefer- ences and power resources of Member States, as well as external catalysts and social structures. We conclude that the current revision deadlock is more stable than the situation before 1992 because now the pro-transparency coalition and transparency- sceptic Council majority have entrenched their positions. Nevertheless, and in spite of Council entrenchment, we expect that Council transparency will continue to develop in the longer term, under the pressure of increasingly influential outside actors, particularly the European Parliament. I Introduction Before 1992, the Council of Ministers was known as a secretive, diplomacy-based, decision-making institution.' Sometimes, decisions remained wholly unpublicised, and citizens had no right of access to documents. Since then, a process of change was brought about in the Council's transparency policies, significantly expanding access to documents and meetings.2 This resulted in the adoption in 2001 of Regulation 1049 on * Maarten Zbigniew Hillebrandt, PhD Researcher at the University of Amsterdam (corresponding author); Deirdre Curtin, Professor of European law at the University of Amsterdam; Albert Meijer, Associate Professor of Public Management at Utrecht University. The authors wish to thank Carol Harlow, Steve Peers and Adriejan van Veen for providing useful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. All responsibility for remaining errors lies with the authors. D. Stasavage, 'Does Transparency Make a Difference? The Example of the European Council of Ministers', in Hood and Heald (eds) Transparency: The Key to Better Governance?, (Oxford University Press, 2006), at 166; L.J. Brinkhorst, 'Transparency in the European Union', (1999) 22 Fordham Inter- national Law Journal 128, 128, 132; D. Curtin and H. Meijers, 'The Principle of Open Government in Schengen and the European Union: Democratic Retrogression?' (1995) 32 Common Market Law Review 391, 392-393. 2 D. Curtin, Executive Power of the European Union: Law, Practices, and the Living Constitution (Oxford University Press, 2009), at 217.

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