Council taken to court over opaque workings of trade committee 

The World Wide Fund (WWF) has taken the Council of Ministers to the European Court of Justice over allegations that its influential 133 Committee on external trade has wrongly withheld documents requested by the organisation.

The legal challenge has been filed before the European Court of First Instance and covers the lack of transparency surrounding the Committee's workings.

The NGO was refused access to Council working documents related to the EU's trade policy after the failure of the WTO summit in Cancun last year, including minutes, resolutions and recommendations.

In a

noteexplaining its reason for refusing access, the Council stated that "releasing the document in question would seriously harm the EU's international, economic relations with third countries" and could therefore "thwart the EU's commercial interests". The note further explained that there are simply no minutes of the 133 Committee meetings and that any progress made is typically reflected in subsequent reports, "if there exist any".

But WWF argues that the right of access applies to documents held and produced by the Article 133 Committee, as it does for any other European Community institution.

The court action was welcomed by the Green NGO Friends of the Earth, who says it recently asked the Council to provide the legal documents relating to the 133 Committee's set up, remit, scope, terms of reference, powers, and responsibilities. The reply stated: "Unfortunately, we have not been able to find in our archives any such legislative act or decision". A similar answer came when the FoE asked for documents setting out the membership of the Committee.