As revealed by the European Commission, 6,361 requests for access to documents have been filed before its services in 2009. This figure, which is far higher that the very few 450 documents requested only one decade ago, shows the growing interest of citizens about the activities of European institutions.

The requests for access to documents received by the Commission during year 2010 did not only concern single documents, but also entire files concerning various administrative procedures. These conclusions are part of the latest Annual Report released by the Commission on the application in 2009 of Public Access to Documents which shows an 18% increase in the number of requests for documents in 2010.

As Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič pointed out, disclosure of documents is often in the public interest and is a key way of increasing transparency, ensuring that the Commission is open to public scrutiny and accountable for its work.

In terms of policy concerns, competition topped the list of areas of interest, accounting for nearly 1 in 10 requests, followed by home and justice affairs, transport and energy, the internal market and the environment. According to the Report, the breakdown of applications by socioprofessional profile confirmed the significance of applications from the academic world, which remained the largest single category, although smaller than in 2008 (21.29% of applications compared with 31.03% in 2008).

Despite the geographical breakdown of applications remained constant, the biggest proportion of requests came from people or organisations based in Belgium (17.95%), with Germany close behind (16.62%). The top position of Belgium on this ranking is due to the fact that the number of enterprises, law firms, associations and NGOs operating at European level.