The right to good administration constitutes an established principle of European Union law, which includes the procedural rights of interested parties involved in administrative proceedings, the result of which may affect their interests.

Since 1 January 2007, the task to safeguard the effective exercise of the procedural rights of the interested parties and ensure that trade proceedings provided in the regulations listed above are handled impartially, fairly and within a reasonable time has been entrusted to an official of the Directorate-General for Trade experienced in trade defence issues, entitled ‘Hearing Officer’.

In order to strengthen this role and reinforce the transparency and the procedural fairness of the relevant proceedings, it is now appropriate to strengthen this function of hearing officer inside the Commission and to lay down his attributions.

This function should be attributed to an independent person experienced in trade proceedings. The hearing officer should be appointed by the Commission in accordance with the rules laid down in the Staff Regulations of Officials and the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the European Union.

In order to ensure the independence of the hearing officer, he should be attached, for administrative purposes, to the member of the Commission responsible for trade policy.

The main attributions of the hearing officer provided for in this decision are to advise the Commissioner responsible for trade policy and the Director-General of Trade DG; to guarantee procedural rights; to allow access to the file; to take a decision on the confidential nature of a document; to review the position of the administration on the extension of deadlines. The hearing officer should seek to ensure that in the preparation of draft Commission legal acts or proposals, due account is taken of all the relevant facts, whether favourable or unfavourable to the parties concerned.

In order to enhance the procedural guarantees for the exercise of the procedural rights of interested parties, it is necessary to determine the types of hearings and to fix the rules for the organisation, conduct and follow-up on hearings with the hearing officer.

The power of the hearing officer to decide on issues concerning access to the file, confidentiality and deadlines should provide the parties involved in a trade proceeding with an additional procedural guarantee without prejudice to the time constraints of the proceeding.

The reports should ensure that the main issues dealt with by the hearing officer and his main recommendations are brought to the attention of the decision-makers and thus provide an additional guarantee for the respect of the rights of parties affected by a trade proceeding. The annual reports should also inform the EU Member States, the European Parliament and the public about the activities of the hearing officer.

This Decision should be without prejudice to the general rules granting or excluding access to Commission documents,