ABSTRACT
Current accounts of EU transparency overwhelmingly focus on access to documents, thereby turning a blind eye to the recipients of public information. While the amount of documents on EU policy-making publicly available has increased tremendously in the last decades, the effect of this development on the democratic quality of the EU can be debated: except for a highly specialised niche public, the informational value of highly complex policy documents is limited. Applying the concept of democratic transparency developed by Archon Fung, this chapter investigates whether it is worthwhile to broaden our focus when analysing EU transparency, specifically the highly debated policy-making forum of trilogues. In these informal negotiations, the European Parliament and the Council negotiate EU policy. An analysis of the availability, proportionality, and accessibility of information on trilogue negotiations shows that much is still to be gained and offers first approaches towards re-focusing transparency debates in the EU.
