The Budapest Court of Appeals on Wednesday ruled that the Central Statistics Office (KSH) must ensure public access to the excessive deficit procedure (EDP) reports it sends to Eurostat, not just the final form of the reports published after Eurostat’s review, Istvan Hollosi, the lawyer for the plaintiff, a journalist told MTI.
The decision, which may not be appealed, was made after KSH appealed a similar first-instance ruling in April. The case was initiated by the plaintiff three years ago.
The ruling is of a general nature, applying to public access for past and future EDF reports, Mr Hollosi said.
KSH must submit an EDP report, prepared jointly with the National Bank of Hungary and the Finance Ministry, to Eurostat twice a year, on April 1 and October 1. KSH may modify the report based on Eurostat’s review. The modified report is published by Eurostat and (since 2006) KSH.
The court dismissed KSH’s arguments that the report, in its form sent to Brussels, is just a preliminary document, and that the public could extrapolate data on specific companies by comparing data from the preliminary and final documents. Addressing the latter argument, the court said data could be rendered in such a way that companies could not be identified.
Mr Hollosi noted that the case took three years, even though the law on data protection requires such cases be put on a fast track.