EU's most powerful officials Selmayr and Tajani Reveal EU's Democratic Skulduggery against Citizen's Rights

Martin Selmayr

Will a new Commission, Council and Parliament solve Europe’s present turmoil?
No.
What is the cause of Europe’s crisis of trust in Brussels, in Whitehall and other parliaments?

A scam against the public. A scam may be defined as getting people to follow rules they never agreed to. A scam leaves people feeling angry and bitter in frustration. They attack those around them and usually not the perpetrators of the fraud. The fraudster gets off, scot free.

Consider what happened immediately after the European Parliament elections. In Brussels, the new party leaders including the UK Brexit Party were called to a conference of party group presidents. Were these democrats eager to engage the public in their discussions about the elections? Were they going to show how the so-called ‘Brussels democrats‘ can democratically change the presidents of the European institutions, including the Commission and European Council?

Judge for yourself. They held a closed door meeting! https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/video/I-173301

European Parliament President Tajani

After the CLOSED DOOR European Parliament conference of party group presidents, party leaders held a press conference. They called for ‘OPEN, transparent‘ process to chose the European Commission and the European Council president. The leader of the EPP (European People’s Party) said ‘more people voted, they want us to speak for them‘ (in secret!?). The Socialist (S&D) leader said that the European Parliament is ‘place for open transparent discussion‘! The European Left leader said ‘Negotiation must be open, transparent and democratic.’

The acting leader of the Brexit party refused to divulge what went on in the meeting. If Brexit party members believe that UK will leave an undemocratic club, why should they follow undemocratic rules of silence, the rule of cartels and mafias? All politicians whether Scandinavian democrats or Brexiteers seem to get sucked into the Brussels Bog! Schuman said that the Councils, committees and other bodies must be under the control of public opinion not vice versa (Pour l’Europe p145).

https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/video/I-173431 at 9 minutes

The Brexit Party seemed to have forgotten that the main reason for the Brexit movement was the Democratic Deficit. I wrote that in 2014 two years before the referendum. UK politicians have a shocking ignorance about how European Democracy should work:

• who proposes legislation,
• who decides, (It’s not the Council!)
• how many elections should take place (at least FIVE!)
• how democracy works at three levels of society:
  • governmental or ministers,
  • European association who build the economy, and
  • a parliament whose main function is the protection of individual rights against bureaucracy and technocracy.

And, most outrageous of all, all these new democrats decided in secret by majority on institutional political nepotism. The president of the European Commission — the most important post in Europe — should be one of their buddies, a politician tied hand-and-foot to a political party, and not, as the treaties say, a citizen who is independent of political parties.

That’s poking the public in the eye with a red hot stick. Only two percent of the public have party cards. Politicians thus exclude 98 percent of the public and violate their human and civil rights.

But at least the British know and said so that the Spitzenkandidat system is not in the treaties and has never been ratified by national Parliaments. Maybe that is why Mr Juncker seems never in all his 5 year mandate to have visited UK except for once or twice. In April 2017 he made an evening call to Number 10 Downing Street. Accompanied by his then head of staff Martin Selmayr, Mr Juncker showed Mrs May the 1000 page EU Canada Agreement, CETA, saying that an agreement on a future relationship could be at least as long. He reportedly told Germany's Chancellor Merkel that Prime Minister May was 'living in a different galaxy.' 

At the 21 February 2018 Commission meeting, Mr Selmayr was abruptly promoted in a matter of minutes. First he became Deputy Secretary General of the Commission. Then the Secretary General who was present showed his letter of resignation. Thus minutes or perhaps seconds later, Mr Selmayr became Secretary General, the Eurocrat-in-Chief. The 28 Commissioners agreed this extraordinary coup, apparently without criticism. Mr Juncker is leaving but Mr Selmayr remains.

What does Europe’s most powerful bureaucrat, Martin Selmayr, now say about the exclusion of ordinary people from being candidate for the Commission?

Remember what even the anti-democratic Lisbon Treaty says. (That treaty text was rejected in referendums when it was called the Constitutional treaty. It was forced on the European people without their assent or referendum.) It says:

Every citizen shall have the right to participate in the democratic life of the Union. TEU article 10.3

There are a number of citizens who have been declared candidates for the Commission who believe they should respect the treaties. They are independent and have experience (competence). Those are the only conditions. 'Independent beyond doubt' means honest and trustworthy and not an agent of any lobby or ideological association or interest group.

I showed Mr Selmayr a text. He immediately recognized it as part of the EU Treaties. It was the oath that Commissioners must take before the judges of the European Court declaring solemnly that they are completely independent in carrying out their responsibilities in the general interest of Europeans.

The text is the same as that for the judges of the the European Court of Justice with one exception. It is much more STRICT. Judges must be impartial, Commissioners more so.

The oath says they must affirm:

‘Neither to seek nor to take instructions from any Government or from any other institution, body, office or entity and to refrain from any action incompatible with my duties or performance…’

 It is obvious to any normal person that a political party is an entity, institution or body so described. A Spitzenkandidat describes precisely a person who seeks instructions and takes instructions from the political party. Being a card-carrying party member active in closed-door meetings of a partisan lobby should immediately disqualify anyone from the Commission or from being a judge.

Mr Selmayr told me that an independent citizen would not be liked by his fellow citizens because he would be considered a technocrat. Really? For more than half a century Europe prospered in its economy and democracy because the Commission was independent. It acted like a Jury or non-partisan Judge. It resisted de Gaulle and other autocrats.

Then, after de Gaulle departed, politicians continued his take-over with technocratic institutions with no democratic controls, hundreds maybe more than a thousand committees closed to the public. That is the story from the massive failure of Maastricht to the Lisbon Treaty. None of these treaties was ever agreed by the British people in referendums. Several other countries rejected them. But the politicians-cum-technocrats took no notice! These are exactly the people Robert Schuman said were the greatest danger for Europeans. They would paralyse European democracy. That is exactly what is happening today.

Mr Selmayr said that such an independent citizen would have to convince the political parties in Parliament that he or she is the right person for the job by lobbying them! The Commission is supposed to be impartial, non-political, so how is the person going to do that? Bribe them by acceding to their often undemocratic ideological programmes? Maybe by promising them they can increase their pay, staff or think tanks at the expense of the tax-payers?

Let us also recall that Mr Selmayr was once a supposedly impartial technocrat and bureaucrat as an official in the Commission. He was one of its spokespeople. He suddenly became the political manager of Mr Jean-Claude Juncker’s Spitzenkandidat campaign in the EPP. How did an official take on such a job when Mr Juncker, a private citizen and ex-prime minister, originally had no wish to become the Commission's president. He had set his eyes on the European Council, the illegitimate child of the illegitimate Lisbon Treaty. Are officials, paid by taxpayers, supposed to be not only politicians but managers of politicians? Were does the money come from for travel and campaigns? 

At the 2014 Dublin meeting of the EPP party, Mr Juncker was elected by 382 party apparatchiks out of 812 such activists at the CLOSED DOOR meeting. Mr Michel Barnier came second.

The politicians and their bureaucrats (or bureaucrats and their politicians) have turned the European system into a political cartel. They, as a new Politburo, have decided they will decide for all citizens. The cannot look their citizens straight in the eye or let the public see what is going on.

There is no such thing as a Spitzenkandidat in the treaties. It is a fantasy of politicians. A circus where no citizen actually votes for the Commission. No ballot paper mentions 'President of the Commission'.
The early treaties as agreed by the public define what is European democracy. The treaties say there are only two criteria for being a candidate for the Commission: experience and independence. Independence means that the person is not a lobbyist or tied to any interest group, whether the national government, or any other organisation such as a political party or commercial organisation, association of lobbyists, workers’ union or consumer association. In other words the candidate is unbiased and unprejudiced.

But the politicians willingly exclude all but a few citizens (their own partisans) from holding office. The European Elections are a case in point. It is a scam. The rules do not conform to elementary rules of democracy. They also violate the treaties. The treaties from 1951 define how European elections to the Parliament should take place. But they have never been put into action!

Those who are victims of scams feel betrayed. Scams are an abomination. They are the opposite to justice. But those who perpetrate scams are in a state of moral denial. For them doing the right thing is an abomination. The right thing is the last they want to do or what they have trained themselves to do: control by party cartel.

That is the problem Europe faces with its crisis of Democracy — its Democratic Deficit. The perpetrators who deny real, open and transparent democracy to the people of Europe, will do everything they can to find a way that denies justice and fairness. Anything else would publicise their trickery.

Hence there is a tendency of politicians to drive Europe in the wrong direction. This is self-deception. It may take the guise of political ideology. But the result is the same: people are denied their real voice in decision-making.

Some facts:

Robert Schuman and the founding fathers described Europe’s Community Method for real democracy and wrote the early treaties

• How the Commission should be selected.
• How the European Parliament should be elected.
• How the Council should be administered, its powers, its limits
• Whether or not there should be such a thing as the European Heads of Government
• How European can solve its unemployment problem
• How it can become the most innovative bloc in the world
• How economic and social matters, immigration and regional affairs can be resolved to the benefit of all by elected bodies.
• How the Court of Justice can be fully responsive both to the needs of Justice and Democracy.

Instead, due to autocrats like Charles de Gaulle, elections have been postponed since the European Community's beginning years. He took over France in 1957. None of the elections, specified in the treaties, took place. He made sure that none would.

De Gaulle left in 1969 but the deformed system was not remedied. Europeans have had NO ELECTIONS according to the provisions of the treaties. Instead they took over de Gaulle’s closed door system and made it even worse. Far worse than even de Gaulle’s most autocratic dream!

Europe is now replete with more secret committees and closed door decisions than ever before.

Europe will eventually recover its democracy. What is not sure is When. It will take people with civil courage to affront the anti-democrats.
Will this crisis last as long as that caused by de Gaulle -- more than a decade?

Freedom of Information request to burst the Brexit Bubble!

Bizarre! 
Brexit is based on an advisory referendum on a bizarre question, not one that legally requires UK government action.  

Doubly bizarre!  
UK's exit from the EU is based on the Lisbon  Treaty -- a treaty that the UK refused to submit to a referendum. Ireland rejected it in a Referendum.

Triply Bizarre. The Lisbon Treaty is identical with the Constitutional Treaty that was rejected by the French and Dutch referendums. Other countries, including UK, were not allowed to have a referendum!

What on earth is going on with 'European Democracy'?? Are the 'Brexit negotiations' being conducted in the democratic interest of the European people? 

In August 2017, I wrote to the European Commission requesting under the Freedom of Information Regulation the release of all papers on Brexit. The public is being spoon-fed minute amounts of information about what is being negotiated between the European Commission and the UK Government. They are not being told WHY!

It is extremely serious for everyone's future. The style of these so-called negotiations precludes the public from understanding the main issues. Are they about trade, red tape or democratic control of a bloated, neo-Gaullist bureaucracy? Justice is far more important. The European Commission was originally called the Honest Broker of Europe. Now it calls itself the political Commission.

These negotiations hide the major issues about the lack of real democracy in Brussels and the distorted democracy that rules in the UK under the slogan, Brexit at any price. 

My request for Brexit information was totally refused by the Commission. Under the Freedom of Information Regulation 1049/2001 I am able to request a review by the Commission (!) of their decision to refuse information. 

The refusal gave three reasons. 1. the Commission has created a "tailor-made process of transparency" which it is applying. 2. Objections relative to the secrecy of negotiations and 3. to matters of economic and financial sensitivity.

This is my reply letter.

To the Deputy Chief Brexit Negotiator,

Dear Ms Weyand,

Many thanks for your letter of 13 September 2017 in reply to my request for all documents and working papers of the UK Brexit talks and discussions.

In accordance with Regulation 1049/2001, I am hereby asking for a review of the grounds that you give for refusing any and all papers other than position papers and agendas etc already released. I am also asking for all documents that are being currently generated as the talks proceed as a continuous process.

A. ‘Tailor made transparency’ is another term for cover-up.

1. Censorship by definition. In your reply you first state that the European Commission has adopted a “tailor-made approach to transparency.” (your bold text) That is precisely the point to which I and many others object. It is not logically or legally possible to have maximum transparency and then withhold documents by a self-serving, restriction. Tailor-making restrictions by and for Commission officials must censor and hide documents from the legal principals.

2. Against interests of free citizens. This procedure is in direct violation to the democratic principles of the Community Method, freedom of information for free citizens, as enunciated by RobertSchuman and the Founding Fathers.

3. Not authorized by principals. Who are the legal principals? Let me put it simply in the terms that the European Commission, Council and Parliament have used many times, that of a divorce. In a marital divorce, the man and the woman are free to choose their lawyers to represent their interests on the settlement in a Court before an impartial judge. A divorce case involves rights, children, property and responsibilities.

If the lawyers were corrupt and wanted to ban the man and woman from their discussions, that would clearly be unfair, not to say, illegal. If the lawyers wanted to come to a division of goods and property, sort out rights etc without a judge being present, that too would be both unjust and illegal. It would not stand up an instance once it was brought before an appeal Court. If the lawyers were more interested in what they could gain in an operation to the detriment and financial loss of the divorcing couple, that would be a dereliction of duty. It would be farcical theatre. For the couple it would involve robbery of their human rights, money and interests.

4. Denies pre-talk discovery. Robbery of facts and smothering of interests are precisely what the EU institutions and the UK government are undertaking at the moment. A tailor-made approach to transparency by biased and unauthorized officials is an instrument in illegality and cover-up. It denies discovery and analysis by the legal principals. Many areas need legal investigation before Brexit talks start and can be solidly structured.

5. Citizens’ rights are not negotiable. The couple seeking the divorce are the British and European publics. More than 500 million people are being divorced, according to the Article 50 process. It is their interests, property and rights that are at stake. Article 50 gives no authorization for secret negotiations or the censorship of documents by the Commission’s so-called ‘tailor-made approach.’ This latter method is unjust as it blocks and silences normal civil procedure. As indicated below, the public have a number of pre-negotiation (pre-trial) issues that must be clarified, before any result can be legally binding.   

6. Only open debate and open documents are acceptable. The present set-up is unacceptable and all papers must be released.

B. The EU and the UK government are not the real negotiating partners.

1. No authority has been cited to construct a ‘tailor-made’ system to censor and restrict information. The information belongs to the people.

Brexit concerns more than 500 million citizens. It does not just PRIMARILY involve the European Commission (acting for the institutions) and the Government of the United Kingdom. Both these parties have their own partisan positions which do not necessarily, and in practice, coincide with the interests of the citizens.

2. The EU institutions do not have full public confidence or trust.

For example the European Union must be concerned with its institutional interests and its practice. Much of these interests are subject to public criticism on grounds of unauthorized secrecy and the “democratic deficit”. The institutions have lost public trust continually in the way the Commission is chosen, contrary to Community law and original customary practice. The result? The turnout of the public in European Parliamentary elections has declined continuously since the post-Maastricht elections. The rise of what the Commission calls ‘nationalist’ or ‘popularist’ movements and parties indicate that the institutions are in crisis. It has lowest ratings since the early days of the European Community.

3. The UK Government, for reasons discussed below, lacks public support.

Article 50 requires that the UK fulfill all its ‘constitutional requirements’ before Brexit. This requires ensuring the rights of national regions, regional parliaments, minorities, and many other issues including the transitory arrangements for some 14,000 legal instruments by democratic means and overall economic stability. The conduct of the Referendum debate, the status of Euratom which was not mentioned in the debate, and the viability of referendums in law, are just some of the issues still raising constitutional questions. For these I would direct you to my book: Brexit and the British Vision for Europe, ISBN 9781326780869.

4. Both the so-called ‘negotiating parties’ are prejudiced against their clients, the public.

4.a The EU institutions.

The European Commission, the European Council and the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament are prejudiced and antagonistic to the UK’s remaining a member of the EU.

This lack of impartiality can be demonstrated by many statements. It would be tiresome to list them all. For example, take their reaction to the Referendum itself. It was a consultative, non-binding referendum on the question of staying in or leaving the EU (not the European Community or Euratom).

The non-binding and consultative nature of the referendum were known in advance and publicized during the Referendum campaign. The non-binding nature was later confirmed – not only in the High Court of England and Wales but in the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. You can find the judgements of these two Courts of Justice, together with the presentations of the parties, in my book:  Brexit, Miller and Henry VIII. ISBN: 9781365727412. I would refer you to paragraph 105 to 108 on in the High Court judgement and paragraphs 116 on in the UK Supreme Court judgement.

It was with some shock among journalists that immediately after the first results from the 23 June 2016 Referendum, the presidents of the four EU institutions presented themselves at 10 am at the Commission Press Room to pronounce. They issued a joint statement. It said UK must leave the EU “as soon as possible, however painful that process may be.” http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2016/06/24-joint-statement-uk-referendum/

Yet 63 percent of British electors had either not voted or voted to remain.  The UK Government had no authority to proceed immediately. Nor had the EU institutions any right to react so negatively or absolutely to an unclear outcome.  Mr Cameron had resigned his office at 8.15 that morning! Whom were the four officials addressing? He said the UK needed ‘fresh leadership’ to deal with the non-binding referendum outcome involving a small majority, splitting the country in half and posing constitutional problems. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/24/david-cameron-resigns-after-uk-votes-to-leave-european-union

To add insult to illegality the four EU presidents in their 10 am statement insisted on a quick Brexit, regardless of the uncertain UK governmental situation and nearly a year before any Article 50 letter was received: ‘We have rules to deal with this in an orderly way.’ In fact the status of Article 50 in this regard is anything but clear.

A second example of many would be the SpitzenKandidat system. This non-treaty device was used to elect Mr Juncker – when the democratically elected British Prime Minister David Cameron had said ‘Mr Juncker is ‘the wrong man’ for the job. Who was Mr Juncker elected by? Just 382 politician/electors of 800 of the EPP. No ballot in all the EU had Mr Juncker’s name on it. No Commission ballot existed.  

The treaties say that the Commission must be impartial and hence a partisan politician is automatically ruled out by law.

A further indication of prejudice is the fact that Mr Juncker’s telephone calls could be seen as an important factor in the resignation of Mr Cameron, an elected Prime Minister. His remarks that preceded the statement of the four presidents were addressed to a country with no effective government.

4b. UK Government is a prejudicial party too.

When Mr Cameron resigned, the Conservative Party had to choose a new leader. This was not done until the autumn. Then Mrs Theresa May called a General Election. She ended up with a minority of votes in the House of Common. She hoped to be sustained by the votes of another party, the DUP of Northern Ireland. Conclusion? The public did not support her policy.

It was Mrs May who used the Conservative Party’s earlier majority to authorize her to write the Article 50 letter to Brussels. However her authority to do so was undermined by the later General Election. Critics say that her hard Brexit policy is a means only to hold the Conservative party together, and pro-Brexit faction within it, are a minority within a minority.

One of many other examples of lack of impartiality that could be cited is the UK Government’s attitude to UK citizens living on the Continent. They were not allowed to vote in the Referendum although their vital interests were involved. There is no guarantee that the present Government will act rigorously to assure these British citizens get a fair deal.

Another, even more serious indicator of undemocratic activity is that the UK governments, since the time of the Maastricht Treaty 1992 to Lisbon, have refused to organize confirmatory referendums to assure treaties’ legality. Thus the Lisbon Treaty has not been confirmed as the acting treaty by referendum. Then they acted one-sidedly and in a prejudicial, partisan way on the advisory referendum of 23 June 2016 to withdraw without reference to Parliament or public debate. Two Courts ruled against them.

5. Conclusion:  

The citizens of the UK and EU-27 are the primary parties in the dispute. They have right for the full disclosure of any and all documents involved in the Article 50 or Brexit process.

Both of the so-called negotiating parties, EU institutions and UK government, have lost public confidence in their impartiality. They do not have public trust.

Both parties have shown themselves prejudicial against public interests.

Both parties ignore calls for fairness.

No meaningful negotiation can take place for the public by parties who are not trusted by the public and who refuse to submit all working documents to the public.

The concept of censoring by a ‘tailor-made’, unauthorized committee of unnamed officials is untenable in any democracy.

Who is the ‘tailor’?

Who decides the pattern or framework for censorship?

Who is able to make the cuts?

Who is involved in stitching up a ‘package deal’ behind closed doors?

Is the pattern they are using one that suits these bodies only and does not involve substantive public issues, such as:

Why the Commission ignored previous referendums that were unfavorable to it,

Why the Lisbon Treaty is identical with the Constitutional Treaty which was rejected by referendums,

Why and how was the Lisbon Treaty and its Article 50, after being rejected by the Irish in a Referendum, mysteriously deemed legal with no public discussion?

What is the status of nuclear proliferation security under Euratom? Euratom has its article 208 which forbids exit for these very reasons.

A ‘tailor-made’ deal is for the public nothing more than a cover-up.

The public is PRIMARILY the main party in the dispute – called a divorce. They have the Primary Right to the documents about what is being discussed either for their enhanced rights in the Community system or against those existing rights to minimize or reduce them. The public and all concerned citizens have the right to have the information about the talks, either directly by video link or have all the working documents plus the position papers.

The two other parties, the EU institutions and the UK government, may not like this. They might wish to carve up in private mutually acceptable positions to the prejudice of the public. They may wish to tailor the information flow to make this easier for them to manage the information and control the PR. That is not the point.  They have no right or legal authority to do so.

The public rights include safeguarding their right to information against any closed door corruption.

This transparency issue goes far beyond the stipulations of the treaties which say that all matters must be treated as openly as possible. The EU institutions must understand that ‘open’ in this case means open to video cameras and public analysis.

The issue goes beyond all the treaties because it is about the right of free people to have free information about their destiny and how others who call themselves representatives are manipulating information to the detriment of elementary rights of Freedom.

THIS IS NOT A SMALL MATTER OF A MINOR COMMITTEE WHERE OFFICIALS WITHOLD DOCUMENTS. IT INVOLVES – AS ROBERT SCHUMAN SAID ON 9 MAY 1950 – THE DEMOCRATIC DESTINY OF THE EUROPEAN CONTINENT.

C. Riposte to other exception clauses

1. Article 4.3 of Regulation 1049/2001.

You write that the disclosure of working documents and internal minutes is prevented by the exception to the right of access laid down in Article 4(3) (protection of the decision-making process).

This reads: 4.3. Access to a document, drawn up by an institution for internal use or received by an institution, which relates to a matter where the decision has not been taken by the institution, shall be refused if disclosure of the document would seriously undermine the institution's decision-making process, unless there is an overriding public interest in disclosure.

The exception of Article 4.3 about this ‘negotiating process’ that you mention is null and void for the reasons detailed above and below. The subject of rights being curtailed in secret excludes its use. The first part of the talks is about ‘divorce’. It deals with the rights of citizens. Only after the divorce can trade matters be discussed.

A fundamental democratic right is to be informed. This is an absolute right. It is recognized by representative governments. Freedom to Information is not doled out by democratic governments, only autocracies. Government is obliged by the people to recognize their right to information. (Article 10 of the Convention of Human Rights, articles 8-11 of the EU Charter).

The so-called negotiating parties have no right to limit this information. Nor is it the function of the EU or government to decide how much information about changing citizen rights it will deign to release to the public. It is the public that judges the EU and the governments about whether they are remiss or not in their functions of civil servants.

Neither the EU Institutions nor the Government of the UK has the full and undivided support of the British or European public. They cannot act fully in its name.

 It is therefore of major importance and overriding interest of the public to have all information being discussed. Otherwise the public will be faced with a negotiated fait accompli from two groups of officials that lack public confidence. They will therefore be faced with the option to take further legal action for the dereliction of duty of the two groups involved.

2. Climate of public trust has already been lost

You say that the ‘negotiations on the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union requires a climate of mutual trust between both sides.’  But neither side has the full trust of the public. There is concern at what is NOT being discussed, excluded by mutual agreement of the EU and UK government against the public.

Whatever the outcome, trust has already been the first casualty. The public cannot properly judge the value of a pig in a poke. That is what in effect the ‘negotiations’ are between two parties that lack public trust. Citizens cannot see what is supposedly being done in their name, and without their acquiescence.  

3. The three areas of talks require openness, not secrecy
The three areas of the present discussion have been defined without public intervention. But as they stand they are all matters that require openness: rights of residence and social security, the Irish single market and travel area and the accountancy of the amounts the UK will pay to settle up its bills and commitments.

The latter is purely an accountancy problem based on legal obligations. The money involved is tax-payers’ money. The final figures and the discussion should be without dispute by anyone, as much as a tax bill of an individual or a company should be fixed and settled by accountancy principles. There is therefore no reason to apply Article 4.3 to any of the main areas defined for the divorce discussions.  

There are a number of other areas such as Euratom, JET and generally governance issues that cannot be restricted by article 4.3. They are issues were the legislation has to be continued beyond Brexit. Public ventilation of the issues is to the advantage of all. It will avoid a slew of Court cases if the ‘negotiators’ get it wrong.

4. Objections under Article 4.1

You say that ‘disclosure of documents is ‘prevented by … Article 4 (1)(a), fourth indent (protection of the financial, monetary or economic policy of the Union or a Member State) and Article 4(1) (b) (protection of the privacy and the integrity of the individuals).’

This article reads:

4.1. The institutions shall refuse access to a document where

disclosure would undermine the protection of:

(a) the public interest as regards:

— public security,

— defence and military matters,

— international relations,

— the financial, monetary or economic policy of the

Community or a Member State;

(b) privacy and the integrity of the individual, in particular in accordance with Community legislation regarding the protection of personal data.

The same counter-arguments apply to dismiss the claim. None of these restrictions apply to universal rights and privileges of UK citizens and EU-27 citizens. They do not involve individuals whose data has to be protected. The money involved is tax-payers’ money.  That alone removes the requirement of secrecy.

The request is about the divorce proceedings not the negotiations afterwards about a new commercial partnership and a new trading relationship.  The subjects being discussed at the moment are:

·         Residential and social rights of EU-27 citizens in the UK and UK citizens in EU27.

·         Irish border, single market problems,

·         Financial payments.

  There are several other issues of equal or greater importance that the negotiating parties have refused to deal with. That underlines the dangers for the citizens of leaving the EU and the UK government the sole right to define what the issues for the citizens really are. So far the experiment has failed. The dangers for the citizen and future democratic standards both for the UK and the EU have been increased.

The objection raised is trying to confound the two phases. The first phase must have open discussion and open paper work.

A tailor-made restriction on documents is by definition a cover-up. I urgently demand that a review of the Commission’s policy be made. All documents relevant to Brexit must be released and negotiations held in a way that satisfies open democracy, worthy of European democratic institutions.

Yours sincerely,

David H Price

SchumanProject

eurDemocracy