Secrecy and Oversight in the European Union. The Law and Practice of
Classified Information
V. Abazi
“This thesis opens the ‘black box’ of the European Union secrecy rules. It offers the first systematic
and in-depth account of the law and practice of official secrets and evaluates whether and how they
restrict democratic oversight and fundamental rights in the European Union.
Based on a legal inquiry that draws from forty original interviews as well as an analysis of theoretical
works on secrecy and democracy, this thesis maps what the rules of official secrets are, who
establishes them and how they work in practice. It critically evaluates whether the EU primary law
commitment to openness is safeguarded and examines the constitutional changes and democratic
implications arising from secrecy.
The dissertation shows that the current EU model of secrecy is engineered by executive actors and
ensures their discretion in the exchange of official secrets. From a democratic perspective, it argues
that the oversight institutions assume more responsibility and pave the way forward to establish more
openness in EU rules of official secrets that are publically debated and constrain the consequences of
secrecy for public deliberation and fundamental rights.”