Important New Legal Principle

Yesterday the General Court of the European Union ruled ECB right not to disclose Greece-related documents.

The European Central Bank was right to refuse access to documents on the economic situation in Greece to a journalist in 2010, because disclosure would have undermined the public interest, the General Court of the European Union ruled.

"Disclosure of those documents would have undermined the protection of the public interest so far as concerns the economic policy of the European Union and Greece," the court ruled on Thursday.

New Legal Principle

Eurointelligence offered this interpretation of the ruling:

The European Court has thus established an important legal principle. If you claim to act in the public interest, you can break the law. And the definition of the public interest is of course, a political one.

Unfortunately, that is quite an accurate assessment. The ruling can be appealed the the European Court of Justice within the next two months, but I do not have high hopes for a different result.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com