In a letter sent to the Spanish Foreign Affairs Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos, ARTICLE 19, a lobby group for “Global Campaign for Free Expression”, expressed a number of concerns regarding freedom of expression not only in Eastern Europe but also in Western Europe, including Malta.

The issue that regards Malta is considered under the weak freedom of information laws theme.

The group said many western European States have much weaker legal guarantees of the public’s right to access information held by public bodies than the younger democracies of Eastern Europe.

Examples of countries with particularly poor legislation in this field are Austria, Spain and Italy. These countries also have no public interest override.

A 2006 empirical survey by the Open Society Justice Initiative found that authorities in Armenia, Bulgaria and Romania significantly outperformed France and Spain in providing information.

In the United Kingdom, freedom of information legislation entered into force only in 2005 and it remains to be seen how effective it will be. Unfortunately, its future is already under threat from two proposed amendments, one exempting the correspondence of MPs from disclosure, and another making it much easier for public bodies to refuse complex requests on the basis that they are unduly costly.

In Cyprus, Malta, Luxemburg and Liechtenstein there is still no freedom of information legislation.

Executive director Dr Agnès Callamard signed the letter.

To read the complete letter, including footnotes, see: http://www.article19.org/pdfs/letters/western-europe-osce-cio-letter.pdf