‘Openness’ and ‘transparency’ are concepts that the European Union loves to go on about. The European Commission led by Ursula von der Leyen takes pride in publishing the minutes of its weekly meetings in Brussels or Strasbourg.

But Follow the Money has discovered that those same meetings appear to have ‘shadow minutes’ that go back for decades. This secret variant of the official minutes stays out of the public eye for no less than thirty years.

Why is this important?

The people’s confidence in a democratic process is influenced by how transparent (or not) its administrators are.

While European Commissioners sometimes speak out in the media on decisions taken jointly, what they actually said in the privacy of the meeting remains hidden from the public. The Commission insists that the publication of internal criticism would ‘endanger the decision-making process in the EU’.

How has this been investigated?

Follow the Money made use of the right in the EU to request documents from the European Commission. When we believed that the request was not handled properly, we filed a complaint with the European Ombudsman. During her investigation, it became clear that the Commission uses two different procedures for recording its meetings.