Former minister seeks access to 100 EU-related government records

In an opinion article published by Morgunblaðið, former Foreign Minister Gunnar Bragi Sveinsson says he has been trying to obtain records from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs dating from his time in office.

The records concern a specific issue and period: the ministry’s communications with the European Union while Sveinsson was responsible for the ministry. He says he has not requested personal information, national security material or documents concerning unrelated matters.

The ministry has cited the Information Act and said that around 100 documents cannot be released, he writes. Sveinsson argues that this approach overlooks the Government Offices Act and the Ministerial Accountability Act.

According to Sveinsson, ministers are legally responsible for their ministries and the work carried out there. A minister is ultimately accountable, he says, so access to records should not be limited to the period during which the minister held office. Circumstances may later arise in which a former minister needs to account for decisions and projects handled during that time.

“Invoking the Information Act makes light of the real responsibility of ministers and shows, in reality, how the system protects itself,” Sveinsson writes.

He says he has specifically requested documents concerning Iceland’s application for EU membership and the conclusion of the accession negotiations. The intentions of the government in 2013 to 2016 regarding the end of the application are clear from numerous news reports, interviews, memoranda and statements, he argues.

It has also been claimed that those intentions were not carried out, he writes. “If that is correct, why was it not carried out?”

Sveinsson says there is ample reason to review all the documents, communications, meetings and other events involving Iceland and the EU during that period if the claim is accurate. The ministry’s administration, he writes, must enjoy the trust of the public, lawmakers and those responsible for executive power.

He also criticises the foreign minister and senior officials at the ministry for telling people that it is possible to look into a “package”, and even claiming that voters are not being asked to decide on an EU application when the 2009 application remains the basis for the process.

That is the membership application that Foreign Minister Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir intends to complete, Sveinsson writes. “I ask myself whether there is something in these documents that could disrupt the package game.”