Correspondence with cement industry on coprocessing
Dear Economic and Financial Affairs,
Under the right of access to documents in the EU treaties, as developed in Regulation 1049/2001, I am requesting documents which contain the following information:
1- All correspondence (including email, SMS, private twitter and WhatsApp) since January 2020 between commissioner Paolo Gentiloni, and/or his cabinet and his cabinet's officials with representatives from CEMBUREAU (The European Cement Association), or PR companies representing CEMBUREAU, in which "coprocessing/co-processing" "cement kilns" "plastic" "incinerators/incineration" or "waste management" were discussed.
I would like to make clear I prefer you produce the documents on a rolling basis. If the timeline is outside of your time allowance, please shorten to January 2021 if this allows you to return the request in full, or otherwise, a more recent date (please specify in your response).
At no point should the Commission’s search for—or deliberations concerning—certain documents delay the production of others that the Commission has already retrieved and elected to produce.
To the extent possible, I would prefer the documents in electronic format.
Should my request be denied wholly or partially, please explain the denial or all deletions referring to specific exemptions in the regulation. Also I expect the partial release of documents, in case of partial exemption according to article 4.6.
I reserve the right to appeal.
Please confirm having received this application. I look forward to your reply within 15 business days, according to the regulation.
Yours faithfully,
Jess Staufenberg
Dear Sir or Madam,
We are writing to you concerning your request for access to documents sent
on 17/10/2023 and registered on 18/10/2023 under case number 2023/6155.
Since you have not indicated your postal address, we are not able to start
handling your request. The 15 working days to reply to your request will
start running only when you send us your postal address.
You can send your postal address by replying to this e-mail. If we do not
receive your reply we may close this case.
Please note that you can submit a request for access to Commission
documents via the portal [1]'Request a Commission document', which does
not require you to indicate your postal address.
Why do we need your personal postal address?
Since 1 April 2014, the submission of a postal address became a mandatory
feature when submitting an application for access to Commission documents
via an e-mail. We would like to explain why we need your postal address in
order to register and handle your application for access to documents when
submitted via e-mail:
• Firstly, to obtain legal certainty as regards the date you received
the European Commission reply to your application for public access to
documents. Article 297 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the
European Union (TFEU) states that 'decisions which specify to whom
they are addressed, shall be notified to those to whom they are
addressed and shall take effect upon such notification.' In line with
this provision, if the Commission does not grant full access to the
requested documents, it notifies the reply to the applicant via
registered mail with acknowledgement of receipt or via delivery
service. This requires an indication of a valid postal address by the
applicant;
• Secondly, to apply correctly the [2]Data Protection Regulation (EU)
2018/1725. Knowing whether the applicant is an EU resident (or not) is
necessary for deciding which conditions shall apply for the
transmissions of personal data to applicants for access to documents.
These conditions are not the same for recipients established in the
Union and for recipients in third countries. As the vast majority of
the documents requested contain personal data, the Commission cannot
ensure the correct application of the data protection rules in the
absence of a postal address;
• Thirdly, to apply correctly [3]Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001. Article
4(1)(b) of that Regulation refers to the protection of the privacy and
integrity of the individual and has to be applied in line with the
Data Protection Regulation;
• Fourthly, to protect the interest of other citizens and safeguard the
principle of good administration. The Commission has to treat all
citizens equally by ensuring that the legal framework for public
access to documents is respected. For example, it has to verify
whether Article 6(3) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 is being evaded
by introducing several requests under different identities. Indeed, in
its Ryanair judgment ([4]EU:T:2010:511), the General Court confirmed
that Article 6(3) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 cannot be evaded by
splitting an application into several, seemingly separate, parts. In
addition, the Commission has to make sure that the legal framework is
respected and the right of access to documents is not abused by making
requests under an invented identity.
The considerations above show that the request for and the consequent
processing of the applicant's postal address is not only appropriate, but
also strictly necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the
public interest within the meaning of Article 5(1)(a) of Data Protection
Regulation, namely providing a smooth and effective access to documents.
Yours faithfully,
Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs - Access to
Documents
European Commission
References
Visible links
1. https://www.ec.europa.eu/transparency/do...
2. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/...
3. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/...
4. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/...
Dear Economic and Financial Affairs,
Apologies. My postal address is
2 Brett Close
N16 0BN
London
United Kingdom
Yours faithfully,
Jess Staufenberg
Dear Ms Staufenberg,
We are writing concerning your request for access to Commission documents
registered on 23/10/2023 under case number 2023/6155.
We are currently working on your request. However, we have not yet been
able to gather all the elements necessary to carry out a full analysis of
your request. We will not be able to send you the reply within the
prescribed time limit expiring on 15/11/2023.
The application concerns documents held by different Services, which must
be consulted.
Therefore, in line with Article 7(3) of [1]Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001,
we need to extend this time limit by 15 additional working days. The new
time limit expires on 06/12/2023.
We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
Kind regards,
ECFIN Access to Documents Team
References
Visible links
1. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/...
Dear Ms Staufenberg,
We are contacting you regarding your request on access to Commission
documents registered on 23/10/2023 under case number 2023/6155. Please be
informed that we are still working on your request. However, we have not
been able to gather all the necessary elements to finalise our reply. We
hope that we will be able to provide you with the reply within the next
working days. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
Yours sincerely,
ECFIN Access to Document
Dear Ms Staufenberg,
Please find attached a message concerning your request for access to
Commission documents registered under the above case number 2023/6155.
Please acknowledge the receipt of this message by return email.
Kind regards,
ECFIN Access to Documents Team