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The EU trade policy is increasingly confronted with demands for more transparency. This article aims to investigate how transparency takes shape in EU trade policy. First, we operationalize the concept of transparency along two dimensions: a process dimension and an actor dimension. We then apply this framework to analysis of EU Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). After analyzing transparency in relation to FTAs from the perspective of the institutional actors (Commission, Council and Parliament), the different instruments and policies that grant the public actors (civil society and citizens) access to information and documents about EU FTAs are explored by discussing Regulation 1049/2001, which provides for public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents, and the role of the European Ombudsman. The article is based on an analysis of official documents, assessments in the academic literature and case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union. The ultimate aim is to assess current initiatives and identify relevant gaps in the EU’s transparency policies. This article argues that the EU has made significant progress in fostering transparency in the negotiation phase of FTAs, but less in the implementation phase.

In der Welt existieren zahlreiche Institutionen zur Verteidigung der Menschenrechte. Besonderes Interesse verdient dabei eine relativ neue Möglichkeit zur Wahrung dieser Rechte - das Amt des Bürgerbeauftragten. In Bulgarien sind die ersten derartigen Institutionen 1998 als Projekt auf Gemeindeebene ins Leben gerufen worden. Seit 2003 sind die Institutionen eines Ombudsmanns auf nationaler Ebene sowie eines gesellschaftlichen Vermittlers auf Gemeindeebene gesetzlich geregelt. Die wesentliche Aufgabe der Bürgerbeauftragten ist die Annahme von Bürgerbeschwerden über Verletzungen ihrer Rechte durch die Staats- oder Gemeindeverwaltung. Der Bürgerbeauftragte in Bulgarien stellt eine demokratische Garantie zur Wahrung der Menschenrechte sowie zur weiteren Entwicklung des Rechtsstaates dar.

Traditional urban planning processes typically happen in offices and behind desks. Modern types of civic participation can enhance those processes by acquiring citizens’ ideas and feedback in participatory sensing approaches like “People as Sensors”. As such, citizen-centric planning can be achieved by analysing Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) data such as Twitter tweets and posts from other social media channels. These user-generated data comprise several information dimensions, such as spatial and temporal information, and textual content. However, in previous research, these dimensions were generally examined separately in single-disciplinary approaches, which does not allow for holistic conclusions in urban planning. This paper introduces TwEmLab, an interdisciplinary approach towards extracting citizens’ emotions in different locations within a city. More concretely, we analyse tweets in three dimensions (space, time, and linguistics), based on similarities between each pair of tweets as defined by a specific set of functional relationships in each dimension. We use a graph-based semi-supervised learning algorithm to classify the data into discrete emotions (happiness, sadness, fear, anger/disgust, none). Our proposed solution allows tweets to be classified into emotion classes in a multi-parametric approach. Additionally, we created a manually annotated gold standard that can be used to evaluate TwEmLab’s performance. Our experimental results show that we are able to identify tweets carrying emotions and that our approach bears extensive potential to reveal new insights into citizens’ perceptions of the city.

Die vorliegende Analyse untersucht in vergleichender Perspektive unabhängige Polizeibeschwerdestellen in anderen europäischen Ländern. Der Fokus liegt dabei auf Stellen, die – anders als etwa Ombudsstellen oder polizeiexterne Sondereinheiten zur Ermittlung von Amtsdelikten – in ihrem Mandat auf die Polizei beschränkt sind. Solch spezialisierte Polizeibeschwerdestellen finden sich in Belgien, Dänemark, Irland, Portugal, Ungarn und dem Vereinigten Königreich. Abschließend werden die Ergebnisse der Untersuchung mit der Situation in Deutschland kontrastiert, um Anregungen für die Fortentwicklung unabhängiger Polizeibeschwerden zu geben.

Ombudsman, unlike the court, cannot make binding decisions, but usually public authorities follow its recommendations, otherwise he may bring the case to the attention of politicians and the public by informing Parliament. The link between the two fundamental European institutions, the Court of Justice of the European Union and the Ombudsman, may be defined as a strong direct link between the problems of EU citizens. Requests to each institution represent an interest of each petitioner, which is intended to be solved by matching laws with moral rules and general principles of law.