In this edition, we track how officials are burying EU funding audits on Gaza, shielding judges’ financial interests and limiting access to ownership data, while watchdogs and civil society push back against weakened transparency laws and chronic delays that undermine scrutiny and journalists’ work.
In this edition of the Secrecy Tracker: how Big Tech’s fingerprints ended up on data centre secrecy laws, the European Court of Justice’s €1.2m website “disaster,” and the irony of a closed-door event celebrating transparency. Plus, the EU Ombudsman is facing an AI-fuelled complaint surge.
The latest Secrecy Tracker warns that a proposed EU law could restrict public access to documents, while also covering controversies over EU transparency in Gaza, preservation of von der Leyen’s emails, and attempts to weaken the Aarhus Convention, highlighting growing threats to accountability and democratic oversight.
Our latest edition of the Secrecy Tracker exposes new cases of EU secrecy: refusals to disclose documents on Israel’s defence funding and its Gaza reports, a so-called ‘fair solution’ limiting transparency of Big Tech, Ursula von der Leyen’s deleted texts, stalled document-access reforms, and lawsuits over hidden environmental rules.
Germany would follow Poland, Spain and the Netherlands, which all announced in recent days that they would leave the agreement.
While Europe is weaning itself off Russian fossil fuels, its nuclear sector is still heavily dependent on Russia, importing over €200m of uranium annually. But when the EU adopts a new sanctions on Friday, nuclear energy will again be absent.
Influential. Investigative. Independent. EUobserver is a online non-profit news outlet reporting on the European Union.
Despite tough lobbying, the EU commission is set to present this week the first binding EU law mandating farmers to reduce their use of chemicals. Long-term food security must not be sacrificed for short-term gains, says EU commissioner Frans Timmermans.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis is the likely next prime minister of Greece. But most media abroad have ignored his wife’s exposure in the Paradise Papers, his Siemens gifts, and his party’s former advisor’s fine for tax avoidance.
Influential. Investigative. Independent. EUobserver is a online non-profit news outlet reporting on the European Union.