PROMOTING ACCESS TO INFORMATION ﹘ INSIGHTS FROM THE EURO-MEDITERRANEAN REGIONAL EXCHANGE OF EXPERIENCES: “PROTECTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS, THE RULE OF LAW AND DEMOCRACY THROUGH COMMON STANDARDS IN THE SOUTHERN MEDITERRANEAN” (2022-2025)
In cooperation with the Commission on the Right to Access to Information of the CDAI, the Co-operation Department for Freedom of Expression of the Council of Europe hosted a major regional conference in Rabat, Morocco. This event, entitled “Euro-Mediterranean Approaches to Access to Information”, is a crucial step towards strengthening transparent governance and protecting the right to access to information in our shared region. The regional event was held in the context of the project “Freedom of Expression, Media Pluralism and Access to Information (SPV-FREXPLUME)”, a component of the Southern Program V, a joint initiative between the European Union and the Council of Europe.
The conference served as a platform for a diverse array of institutional representatives on access to information from various Euro-Mediterranean countries, including North Macedonia, Morocco, Tunisia, Lebanon, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Serbia, and Georgia. This broad representation facilitated a rich dialogue, sharing of best practices, and knowledge dissemination on the Council’s standards, particularly the Convention on Access to Official Documents (Troms Convention).
Among the esteemed speakers at the conference was Plamenka Bojcheva, the Director of the Agency for Free Access to Public Information of the Republic of North Macedonia. In her address, she provided valuable insights into the Agency’s appeal-handling process, with a special focus on judicial practice in the Administrative and Higher Administrative Courts proceedings. Her presentation offered experiential perspectives that enriched the discussions at the conference.
The participants engaged in fruitful case study discussions and peer-to-peer exchange of experiences with Council of Europe experts, who provided recommendations for establishing a benchmark for the performance of self-assessment indicators in the area of access to information and valuable insights for improving mechanisms and tools in the southern Mediterranean region (Morocco, Tunisia and Lebanon) and European countries.
The video from the conference is on the following link:
