Transparency measures
On 20 May 2021, the Parliament, the Council and the Commission signed an Interinstitutional Agreement (the IIA) by which they set up a mandatory EU Transparency Register.
Under the provisions of the IIA, interest representatives sign-up to the Transparency Register's website on a voluntary basis. However, if they want to have access to the EU institutions, conditionality measures adopted by the respective EU institutions can make it de facto mandatory for them to register in the Transparency Register.
A number of actors are excluded from the scope of the EU Transparency Register, such as public authorities of Member States at national and subnational level or associations and networks of public authorities at EU, national or subnational level. Also, staff and members of the EU institutions do not require registration in the EU Transparency Register. Furthermore, certain activities are excluded from the scope of the EU Transparency Register, such as situations where an actor has only indirect influencing potential, e.g., experts providing input to rapporteurs or when a contribution is provided through an official stakeholder consultation process.
In this context, as from January 2024 onwards, also a number of transparency measures shall apply with respect to CoR members.
In the light of the Committee's consultative role within the European institutional set-up, enabling sub-national authorities to participate in the European Union decision-making process, those measures focus on the categories of members with the most genuine, direct and individual impact on the EU decision-making process, namely:
- office-holding members, who might influence the political agenda (President and First Vice-President, Presidents of the Political Groups, Commission Chairs);
- rapporteurs, who can steer the orientation of an opinion/report and can submit individual rapporteurs' amendments (with precedence over other amendments).
The transparency measures adopted at CoR encompass:
- an invitation to office-holding members and rapporteurs to meet only with interest representatives that have registered in the Transparency Register and to encourage interested parties to register in the Transparency Register;
- the obligation for office-holding members and rapporteurs to publish on-line any meeting they have in their capacity as CoR member with interest representatives; data regarding such meetings shall be published on the Members Page of the CoR members concerned;
- the possibility, for rapporteurs, to enclose a voluntary legislative footprint in the file of an opinion/report, establishing a non-exhaustive list of organisations and individuals from whom the rapporteur has received input in drawing up the report or opinion.
Interest representatives who enter into interaction with CoR members under the provisions of the EU Transparency Register can find more information about the processing of their personal data in the related Data Protection Notices for the publication of meetings with interest representatives and for the elaboration of a legislative footprint.
Access to documents
Decision No 18/2020 on public access to Committee of the Regions documents
Decision No 18/2020 on public access to Committee of the Regions documents explicitly embraces the principles and limits laid down in Regulation (EC) 1049/2001 and also lays down the procedure for requesting access to Committee documents.
Committee documents mentioned in the list appended to Decision No 18/2020 are directly accessible to citizens in an electronic document register. Other documents might also be included in this document register.
Citizens may request access to any other documents, subject to the limits laid down in Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001.
Applications must be made in a sufficiently precise manner and must, in particular, contain information enabling the document or documents requested to be identified as well as the name and contact details of the applicant. However, the applicant is not obliged to state the reasons for the application (except in some cases involving access to personal data). The Committee must acknowledge receipt of the application as soon as it is registered and reply within 15 working days from registration (this deadline may be exceptionally extended by 15 working days).
If the Committee totally or partially refuses access to the requested document, it must state the grounds for such refusal. The applicant then has 15 working days to make a confirmatory application. Following this, the Committee again has 15 working days (with a possible extension of 15 additional working days) to reply.
If the Committee still refuses to grant full access to the requested document following a confirmatory application, the applicant has the possibility to institute court proceedings against the Committee and/or make a complaint to the European Ombudsman.
If you are not able to find a document in the electronic document register, you can submit a request for access to that document via the link below.
Request a document
To request access to a document, please fill in the following form and select Access to Documents.