More than two decades since mobile phones have made texting ubiquitous, the European Union institutions struggle to square their transparency obligations with leader’s wishes to keep their direct exchanges confidential.
The conundrum became evident earlier this year in closed-door negotiations between policy-makers in the European Commission, the Council of member states, the European Parliament and other EU institutions over a common framework on how to deal with text messages.
If the EC mandates archiving of text messages and the people in question don’t want their conversation to be recorded, they’re just gonna use a voice call.
I’d say either outright mandate that all official interactions be recorded or just let officials text privately. Restrictions on texting alone don’t stop the problem and do create overhead for officials.
Agreed. Either it’s archive text messages, and also tape-record all verbal communication as well, or just let people talk to each other without all this admin.