The paper assesses the Interinstitutional Agreement between the European Parliament and the Council from 2002 which gave the former access to sensitive Council documents in the area of security and defence policy. By letting five MEPs access sensitive information one could argue that the accountability of EU foreign policy has been strengthened. However, the arrangement is more correctly labelled elite accountability as the information cannot be disclosed and debated in open parliamentary settings. Elite accountability is not democratically anchored, but we argue that the arrangement opens up for important elements of checks and balances. Even if it does not meet the democratic standard, we discuss to what extent the dominance of security and defence experts render decisions better qualified and well informed. By differentiating analytically between different types of accountability, we open up for a more nuanced discussion about transparency and accountability in the field of EU foreign policy.
