Dear Mr B.,

On 31 October 2000, you made a complaint to the European Ombudsman concerning the conditions of availability of official European Union documents to citizens.

On 19 December 2000, I forwarded the complaint to the President of the European Commission. The Commission sent its opinion on 21 February 2001 and I forwarded it to you with an invitation to make observations, if you so wished. No observations appear to have been received from you.

I am writing now to let you know the results of the inquiries that have been made.

THE COMPLAINT

According to the complainant, the relevant facts were as follows:

The complainant searched in the free on-line service Eur-Lex for Directive 2000/39/EC. In the text of the Directive as displayed in Eur-Lex, he found an indication that there is a table, but the contents of the table are not available in Eur-Lex.

He addressed the Helpdesk of Eur-Lex, who advised that the text of Community law available via Eur-Lex is taken from the database Celex. For technical reasons, this database cannot contain any annexes (tables, graphics, diagrams or pictures). Furthermore, the Helpdesk informed him of the possibilities to buy a copy of the document from EUDOR, Outlaw Informationssysteme GmbH or other document suppliers in Germany.

In his complaint to the Ombudsman, the complainant alleged that the lack of availability of tables in the free service Eur-Lex is an infringement of the freedom of information. He claimed that citizens should have permanent free and complete access to European Union documents.

THE INQUIRY

The European Commission's opinion

In its opinion, the Commission made the following comments:

The Official Journal of the European Communities (OJ) is an interinstitutional publication. Decisions on conditions of access to Official Journal material are made by the Publications Office's Management Board, which is composed of members representing all European institutions. It is for the Management Board to decide how to distribute Official Journal material and whether distribution should be free or subject to payment.

At present, the EUR-Lex service offers citizens access to the Official Journal L and C series in PDF format (image format as published in the OJ paper edition) for 45 days after publication, as well as access to other legislative and quasi-legislative material. Documents are available free of charge in the 11 official languages, the service is updated daily.

After 45 days, OJ bibliographical information remains available to the citizen free of charge and without time limitation via the EUR-Lex service. Access to archive documents in image format going back further than 45 days, is provided through EUDOR, a paying service. These documents are complete and include tables and graphics.

The 45-day retention period in EUR-Lex is designed to bridge the gap between the publication date of the Official Journal and the date of issue of the OJ L and C monthly CD-ROM. Further, it permits the Celex database and its search facilities to be updated and documents to be uploaded into the EUDOR archive.

It was always the institutions' policy to make the Official Journal available against payment, whether on paper or CD-ROM or via Celex and EUDOR. The short-term electronic availability of the OJ in EUR-Lex is an additional and improved service.

The complainant's observations

The complainant made no observations on the Commission's opinion.

THE DECISION

1 The allegation of infringement of the freedom of information

1.1 The complainant alleged that the lack of availability of tables in the free service Eur-Lex is an infringement of the freedom of information. He claimed that citizens should have permanent free and complete access to European Union documents.

1.2 The Commission explained that decisions on conditions of access to Official Journal material are made by the Publications Office's Management Board, which is composed of members representing all European institutions. It has always been the institutions' policy to make the Official Journal available against payment, whether on paper or CD-ROM or via Celex and EUDOR. The short-term free electronic availability of the Official Journal in EUR-Lex is an additional and improved service.

1.3 The Ombudsman does not consider that the absence of the content of tables in the Eur-Lex service could infringe the principle of freedom of information, since the information is available from other sources.

1.4 As regards the complainant's claim that citizens should have permanent free and complete access to European Union documents, the Ombudsman notes that according to Article 1 of the Treaty on European Union, decisions should be taken "as openly as possible". At present, however, here appear to be no explicit obligation to provide citizens with permanent and complete on-line access to the text of the Official Journal.

1.5 In these circumstances, there appears to be no maladministration on the part of the Commission.

2 Conclusion

On the basis of the Ombudsman's inquiries into this complaint, there appears to have been no maladministration by the Commission. The Ombudsman therefore closes the case.

The President of the Commission will also be informed of this decision.

Yours sincerely,

 

Jacob SÖDERMAN