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Analysing the trade-off between transparency and efficiency in the Council of the European Union

Stéphanie Novak (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice) & Maarten Hillebrandt (University of Bielefeld)

Negotiating behind closed doors allows policy-makers to speak their minds freely and secures the efficiency of decision-making processes. This argument has long served members of the Council of the European Union as a justification to refuse public disclosure of documents in ongoing decision-making procedures. In their article “Analysing the trade-off between transparency and efficiency in the Council of the European Union” published in the Journal of European Public Policy, Stéphanie Novak and Maarten Hillebrandt probe the veracity of claims that a trade-off exists between the public’s ability to follow negotiations in the Council and the latter’s efficiency. Drawing on data from the Council’s replies to citizens’ applications requesting access to undisclosed documents as well as interviews with Council members, Stéphanie and Maarten show that the effect of transparency on the Council’s efficiency is far from unidimensional. Their analysis calls into question “any reductive representation of the relation between transparency and efficiency as a ‘weighing scale’ trade-off and the idea that these two legitimating values would be unconditionally incompatible.”