Overseeing Secrets in the EU: A Democratic Perspective

Abstract

Formulating policy and overseeing implementation require access to information. Yet in (national) security matters executive officials have considerable discretion to conceal from the public and from parliaments information they consider sensitive. If executive officials are given largely unchecked power to conceal from the public and from parliament(s) whatever information they consider sensitive, part of the essential machinery of democracy is disconnected. Secrecy becomes a danger when it undermines the very values invoked to protect it: democratic self-government and security. Technical European Union (EU) security classification rules receive little attention from outsiders and are adopted and amended in iterative processes as low-level internal rule-making. Oversight mechanisms in the EU, in particular by parliaments, can supply some countervailing pressure, but remain a recurrent challenge. Is more public discussion needed on when and for how long secrets can be kept and how oversight mechanisms are constructed in new EU horizontal legislation?

Bureaucratic Politics and the Prevention of Leaks in the European Commission

“…Instead, the qualitative data available suggests that leak prevention happens in selected instances, especially where the Commission leadership attempts to keep control over timing. This builds on previous research that has already shown how EU institutions try to prevent that classified EU information is published (for an overview see Curtin 2014;Galloway 2014). It also adds to recent contributions on secrecy and the "space to think" and on how they are constructed in EU institutions like the Council of the European Union and the European Council.…”

“…Where we find confidentiality enforced in Western political systems, this should be selective and limited to instances where the strategic interests of political leadership are concerned. This enriches discussions on the politics and regulation of secrecy, confidentiality, and lack of transparency in the EU (Curtin 2014;Galloway 2014;Abazi 2015;Rosén 2015;Hillebrandt and Novak 2016) and the emerging debate on secrecy in Europe.…”

“…In combination with clearer classification systems, it was expected that this could result in broader awareness about which information is really meant to be confidential (de Jong and de Vries 2007: 224). However, Curtin (2014) argues, and shows for the case of the EU, that such an approach -clarifying secrecy through classification -can also lead to a system of overclassification. Still, in the US, where there are large amounts of classified information and thousands of leaks thereof, there have been only "roughly a dozen criminal prosecutions"…”

Secrecy and security in transatlantic terrorism finance tracking

“…This article aims to contribute to these literatures by highlighting the dynamics and significance of the practices of secrecy and publicity of the TFTP and other post 9/11 security programmes. It especially builds upon work on EU secrecy by Curtin (2014).…”

EU Institutional Politics of Secrecy and Transparency in Foreign Affairs

“…Information relating to national security or trade negotiating positions may be justifiable reasons to limit information flows. However, from a democratic oversight perspective, secrets should be justified and politically checkable in the broad sense that they are subordinate to policies that themselves are transparent and politically alterable (Curtin, 2014;Thompson, 1999).…”