Ref. Ares(2017)2739148 - 31/05/2017
EUROPEAN COMMISSION
Directorate-General for Trade
The Director General
Brussels,
trade.dga2.g.3/BM/nk (2017)2392656
By registered letter with acknowledgment of
receipt
Thibault Devoldere
Renaat de Rudderlaan 6
8500 Kortrijk
Belgium
Advance copy by email: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxx.xxx
Subject:
Your application for access to documents – Ref. GestDem No 2016/6180
Dear Mr Devoldere,
I refer your email of 1 November 2016 in which you make a request for access to
documents in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1049/20011 (“Regulation
1049/2001”), registered on 3 November under the above mentioned reference number.
In particular, you would like to receive access to:
"all correspondence (including emails), agendas, minutes of meetings and any
other reports of such meetings between officials of DG Trade (including the
Commissioner and his/her Cabinet) and representatives of NGOs, companies,
business associations and law firms with whom environmental and food safety
standards were discussed in relation to TTIP (The Transatlantic Trade and
Investment Partnership). Environmental and food safety standards include, but
are not limited to, rules on the use of growth hormones in livestock farming; on
pesticide residues; on chlorine-washed chicken; on endocrine disrupting
chemicals; on tar sand oil, and on genetic engineering (GMOs);
1 Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 May 2001
regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents, OJ L 145,
31.5.2001, p. 43.
Commission européenne/Europese Commissie, 1049 Bruxelles/Brussel, BELGIQUE/BELGIË - Tel. +32 22991111
all documents held by DG TRADE (including minutes/memos/notes/reports for
internal use) and all correspondences (including emails) relating discussions
within the World Trade Organization (WTO) on maximum residue levels (MRLs)
and/or crop protection product residues in general;
all correspondence (including emails), agendas, minutes of meetings and any
other reports of such meetings between officials of DG Trade (including the
Commissioner and his/her Cabinet) where maximum residue levels (MRLs)
and/or crop protection product residues in general were discussed".
You specified in your email that you are
"requesting all documents within the time frame
January 2012 till November 2016" and that you would prefer to receive the documents
"on a rolling basis, rather than waiting until the full response is ready".
In accordance with Article 6(2) of Regulation 1049/2001 concerning the possibility for
an institution which is the addressee of a request for access to documents to reach a “fair
solution” with the applicant, you agreed on 9 November to receive the documents in
successive batches and to reduce the time frame for the documents requested under the
first bullet point to the period from January 2012 until December 2013.
On 29 November 2016 we provided you with a reply covering the first bullet point of
your request in relation to
tar sand oil (Ares(2016)6673301).
On 23 December 2016 we provided you with a reply covering the first bullet point of
your request in relation to
pesticide residues and
GMOs, as well as the second and third
bullet points of your request (Ares(2017)300771).
On 14 February 2017, we provided you with a reply regarding the first bullet point of
your request in relation to
growth hormones in livestock farming and
chlorine-washed
chicken (Ares(2017)805972).
The present letter addresses the final, outstanding aspect of the first bullet point of your
request in relation to
TTIP and endocrine disrupting chemicals.
We regret to inform you that we have not identified any document that would fall within
the scope of this last angle of your request. As we have made clear previously, the
ongoing EU work to establish criteria to identify substances with endocrine disrupting
properties is not in any way related to the – now suspended – TTIP negotiations with the
US.
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With this letter, we consider your request closed.
***
In accordance with Article 7(2) of Regulation 1049/2001, you are entitled to make a
confirmatory application requesting the Commission to review this position.
Such a confirmatory application should be addressed within 15 working days upon receipt
of this letter to the Secretary-General of the Commission at the following address:
European Commission
Secretary-General
Transparency unit SG-B-4
BERL 5/282
1049 Bruxelles
or by e-mail to:
xxxxxxxxxx@xx.xxxxxx.xx
Yours sincerely,
Jean-Luc DEMARTY
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Electronically signed on 30/05/2017 17:23 (UTC+02) in accordance with article 4.2 (Validity of electronic documents) of Commission Decision 2004/563