ECB v Espirito Santo Financial (Portugal) (Appeal - Access to document - Opinion)

(Appeal — Access to documents — Access to the ECB’s decision of 1 August 2014 suspending the access of Banco Espírito Santo SA as an eligible counterparty of the euro area and ordering that bank to repay a debt of several billion euros, and to any documents relating to that decision — Refusal to grant full access)

In support of its appeal, the ECB advances a single ground of appeal contending that the General Court erred in finding that, when it refuses access to information relating to the conduct of monetary policy, the ECB is obliged to provide a statement of reasons from which it is possible to understand and verify how access to that information would specifically and actually undermine the public interest as regards the confidentiality of proceedings of the ECB’s decision-making bodies.

This case therefore gives the Court an opportunity to rule on the fundamental question of which principle — the principle of confidentiality or the principle of transparency — applies to the deliberations of an ECB decision-making body, a dilemma that must be resolved on the basis both of Decision 2004/258/EC ( 3 ) and of primary law.

Article 10.4 of Protocol No 4 on the Statute of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) and of the ECB ( 4 ) (‘the Statute of the ESCB and of the ECB’) provides that:

‘The proceedings of the meetings shall be confidential. The Governing Council may decide to make the outcome of its deliberations public.’