The European Environment Bureau (EEB) lost no time in condemning the Commission's attitude that it deems anti-democratic and contrary to the latter's resolve to promote the rights of EU citizens.
Jeremy Wates, EEB Secretary General, said: “It is pure hypocrisy that, on the one hand, the Commission proclaims that 2013 will be the Year of European Citizenship and at the same time launches appeals against Court rulings that would give those same citizens greater rights to challenge violations of the law. This comes on the heels of the Commission's equally disgraceful attempts to weaken the transparency requirements pertaining to information held by EU institutions”.
The EEB states indignantly that, rather than amend its Regulation 1367/2006 intended to apply the provisions of the Aarhus Convention to the EU institutions regarding access to information, public participation in the decision-making process and access to justice, which is not fully in line with the Convention as it allows the public to challenge only a very narrow category of acts, the Commission prefers to appeal the rulings.
The network of environmental NGOs considers that the appropriate response from the Commission to the rulings would have been to start preparing a proposal to strengthen the EU Regulation 1367/2006, so that it no longer restricts NGOs' requests for internal review of the legislation within an over-restrictive scope.
According to the EEB, these matters are crucial as, as Anais Berthier of the NGO ClientEarth pointed out, “they address one of the most important violations of the Convention by the Regulation and offer an opportunity to the EU institutions to correct the mistake they made when adopting the Regulation of giving it too restrictive a scope”, saying that, as Guardian of the Treaties, the Commission has the responsibility of ensuring EU law is abided by.
At the heart of the matter, it is more than a legal issue but a political issue - that of knowing whether the EU should be a Europe of citizens or a Europe of large institutions dominated by business interests, the EEB states.
