Dataharvest 2024 - the European Investigative Journalism Conference

For more than two decades, journalists have been able to rely on the European Union's freedom of information law to gain access to documents on lawmaking, public spending and lobbying. Since 2009, the EU has even enshrined access to documents in its Charter of Fundamental Rights. This has allowed investigations into issues such as the EU's climate policy, lobbying by big tech companies, and human rights abuses at Europe's external borders. But transparency is not what is once was.Under President Ursula von der Leyen's European Commission, journalists requesting information have faced long delays. Meanwhile, EU member states have shrouded major projects in secrecy - including the €723 billion Recovery and Resilience Facility. The European Commission has also refused access to text messages in which von der Leyen brokered the EU's multi-billion euro vaccine deal with Pfizer. Our panellists will discuss recent legal challenges against EU institutions, such as the New York Times' lawsuit over the Pfizer texts. We will also discuss strategies that journalists can to overcome obstacles to the right of access to documents, and explore, along with the participants, different possibilities for collective action.