Europea Peoples Party Redefines what a "Document" to Undermine Democratic Accountability

So, recently, there has been a dispute over what types of documents the EU has to turn over to be available to the public. The main treaty articles have glowing language about democratic accountability and access to documents, which have been implemented with a solid policy in place since 1993. 


However, sometimes various EU actors are over-worked, malicious, or fail to understand what type of documents they must make available. EU politicians, especially the right/center-right European Peoples' Party have been trying to exclude anything but the final submitted version of a document from the definition of "documents" that must be eventually made public. Today, they seemed to have secured an agreement in the European Parliament that creates new exceptions as to what is a "document". 


Seems to me that there is a problem if the institutions that are obliged to follow certain obligations flowing from Treaty law can re-write or re-define those obligations? Who watches the watchman?


Source: http://www.statewatch.org/news/2011/may/05eu-access-reg-impasse-broken.htm


State Watch Press Release: 


- "the definition of 'document' is an issue of primary law, ie the interpretation of the Treaty by the Court of Justice - it is not open to the institutions to define it in a way which limits the correct interpretation and application of the Treaty. In other words the rules on access to documents must apply to all 'documents' as defined by the Treaty - they cannot exclude entirely from their scope anything which is a document as defined by the Treaty." (Professor Steve Peers)

- "If the price of getting discussions on the Regulation moving is to limit or restrict the current definition of a "document", which has been in place since 1993, then it is far too high a price to pay. The definition is the bedrock of the right of access and of EU accountability." (Tony Bunyan)