Bowles letter to local papers concerning Council Secrecy

10.11.56am UTC (GMT +0000) Fri 21st Oct 2005

Fiona Hall MEP and Sharon Bowles MEP

Dear Sir

Laws should not be made behind closed doors but that is what our ministers do when they get together in Brussels. Draft EU legislation has to be approved or amended both by the European Parliament and by the Council of Ministers. While MEPs meet in public the ministers debate in secret. How can they be held to account if no-one knows what they have been saying?

To bring about an improvement all that is needed is a simple change in the standing orders of ministerial meetings. In pressing for this I have secured not only the backing of the Conservative and Labour leaders in the European Parliament but even that of the UK Independence Party.

In calling for change I have been criticised by some who say that nothing that was included within the failed constitutional treaty should be considered now. Yet I know of no-one who opposed the EU constitution because they wanted to keep secretive law-making.

Britain holds the presidency of the EU until the end of the year and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is the man who can propose the reform. Making a change to inject a bit more openness and transparency into the law-making process would surely be a worthwhile achievement.

Yours faithfully

Sharon Bowles, Liberal Democrat MEP for South East England