gas market reform - Secretariat general

Ihre Anfrage war teilweise erfolgreich.

From: Belen Balanya, Corporate Europe Observatory
Rue d’Edimbourg 26, 1050 Brussels.
28 June 2019 RE: Access to Documents related to the gas market reform

Dear sirs,

Referring to Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 on public access to EU documents and to the 'Aarhus Regulation' (see note), I would herewith like to ask for access to the following:
1- all correspondence (including email) between 1st January 2018 and 28 June 2019 between the Commission President Juncker and/or his cabinet on one hand and representatives from Eurogas, GasNaturally, the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (IOGP), Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE), Marcogaz, IFIEC Europe, ENTSOG, ENTSOE, Eurelectric, Business Europe, CEFIC, Hydrogen Europe, Gas for Climate, Bioenergy Europe, European Biogas Association, National Grid, Open Grid Europe, Enagas, Gasunie, GRTgaz/GRDF/Engie, Terega, Statoil/Equinor, ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Enagas, Snam, Fluxys, Gazprom, Weber Shandwick, Gplus, Fleishman-Hillard and/or FTI Consulting on the other, in which the gas market reform was addressed.

I would like to make clear I prefer you produce the documents on a rolling basis.
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, we prefer the documents in electronic format. Documents that cannot be sent in electronic format should be sent to Corporate Europe Observatory, Rue d’Edimbourg 26, 1050 Brussels.

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.

Thank you for your assistance.

Belen Balanya
Corporate Europe Observatory

Note: See Regulation (EC) n. 1367/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 September 2006 on the application of the provisions of the Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters to Community Institutions and bodies (hereinafter "Aarhus Regulation")

Generalsekretariat der Europäischen Kommission

Your message has been received by the Transparency Unit of the
Secretariat-General of the European Commission.
Requests for public access to documents are treated on the basis of
[1]Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 of 30 May 2001 regarding public access to
European Parliament, Council and Commission documents.
The Secretariat-General will reply to your request within 15 working days
upon registration of your request and will duly inform you of the
registration of the request (or of any additional information to be
provided in view of its registration and/or treatment).
 
 
L’unité «Transparence» du secrétariat général de la Commission européenne
a bien reçu votre message.
Les demandes d’accès du public aux documents sont traitées sur la base du
[2]règlement (CE) n° 1049/2001 du 30 mai 2001 relatif à l’accès du public
aux documents du Parlement européen, du Conseil et de la Commission.
Le secrétariat général répondra à votre demande dans un délai de 15 jours
ouvrables à compter de la date d’enregistrement de votre demande, et vous
informera de cet enregistrement (ou vous indiquera toute information
supplémentaire à fournir en vue de l'enregistrement et/ou du traitement de
votre demande).
 
 
Ihre Nachricht ist beim Referat „Transparenz“ des Generalsekretariats der
Europäischen Kommission eingegangen.
Anträge auf Zugang zu Dokumenten werden auf der Grundlage der
[3]Verordnung (EG) Nr. 1049/2001 vom 30. Mai 2001 über den Zugang der
Öffentlichkeit zu Dokumenten des Europäischen Parlaments, des Rates und
der Kommission behandelt.
Das Generalsekretariat beantwortet Ihre Anfrage innerhalb von
15 Arbeitstagen nach deren Registrierung und wird Sie über die
Registrierung Ihres Antrags (oder die Notwendigkeit weiterer Informationen
im Hinblick auf dessen Registrierung und/oder Bearbeitung) unterrichten.
 
 

References

Visible links
1. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/...
2. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/...
3. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/...

ve_sg.accessdoc (SG), Generalsekretariat der Europäischen Kommission

[1]Ares(2019)4144912 - RE: access to documents request - gas market reform
- Secretariat general --- Ref. Gestdem 2019/3745

Sent by ve_sg.accessdoc (SG) <[SG request email]>. All responses have
to be sent to this email address.
Envoyé par ve_sg.accessdoc (SG) <[SG request email]>. Toutes les
réponses doivent être effectuées à cette adresse électronique.

Dear Madam,

Thank you for your e-mail dated 28/06/2019. We hereby acknowledge receipt
of your application for access to documents, which was registered on
01/07/2019 under reference number GestDem 2019/3745.

In accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 regarding public access to
European Parliament, Council and Commission documents, your application
will be handled within 15 working days.

The time limit will expire on 22/07/2019. In case this time limit needs to
be extended, you will be informed in due course.

You have lodged your application via the AsktheEU.org website. Please note
that this is a private third-party website which has no link with any
institution of the European Union. Therefore, the European Commission
cannot be held accountable for any technical issues or problems linked to
the use of this system.

Please note that the private third party running the AsktheEU.org website
is responsible and accountable for the processing of your personal data
via that website, and not the European Commission. For further information
on your rights, please refer to the third party’s privacy policy.

We understand that the third party running that website usually publishes
the content of applicants’ correspondence with the European Commission on
that website. This includes the personal data that you may have
communicated to the European Commission (e.g. your private postal
address).

Similarly, the third party publishes on that website any reply that the
Commission will send to the email address of the applicants generated by
the AsktheEU.org website.

If you do not wish your correspondence with the European Commission to be
published on the AsktheEU.org website, you can provide us with an
alternative, private e-mail address for further correspondence.

In that case, the European Commission will send all future electronic
correspondence addressed to you only to that private address.

Yours faithfully,

Access to documents team (RC)
SG.C.1
Transparency

Zitate anzeigen

ve_sg.accessdoc (SG), Generalsekretariat der Europäischen Kommission

1 Attachment

Link: [1]File-List
Link: [2]Edit-Time-Data
Link: [3]themeData
Link: [4]colorSchemeMapping

[5]Ares(2019)4741471 - Holding reply for intitial request 2019/3745

Sent by ve_sg.accessdoc (SG) <[SG request email]>. All responses have
to be sent to this email address.
Envoyé par ve_sg.accessdoc (SG) <[SG request email]>. Toutes les
réponses doivent être effectuées à cette adresse électronique.

Dear Ms Balanya,                 

We refer to your email of  28 June 2019  in which you submit a request for
access to documents, registered on the same day, under the above mentioned
reference number.

Your application in currently being handled. Unfortunately, we have not
yet been able to gather all the elements required to carry out a full
analysis of your request in order to take a decision.

Therefore, we regret to inform you hereby that we will not be in a
position to reply to your request within the prescribed time limit of 15
working days which expires on 22 July 2019.

Consequently, we need to prolong this limit by another 15 working days.
The new deadline expires on 12 August 2019.

We apologise for this delay and for any inconvenience this may cause. We
would like to reassure you that we will do our utmost to provide you with
a reply as soon as possible.

Yours faithfully,

 

 

 

María OLIVÁN AVILÉS
Head of Unit

[6]cid:image001.gif@01D13362.41D673C0

European Commission

Secretariat General

Unit C.1 (Transparency, Document Management and Access to Documents)

 

References

Visible links
1. file:///tmp/cid:filelist.xml@01D54076.0A7FE490
2. file:///tmp/cid:editdata.mso
3. file:///tmp/~~themedata~~
4. file:///tmp/~~colorschememapping~~
5. https://webgate.ec.testa.eu/Ares/ext/doc...

Generalsekretariat der Europäischen Kommission

1 Attachment

Dear Ms Balanyá,

 

Thank you for your email.

 

We refer to your e-mail dated 28/06/2019 in which you make a request for
access to documents, registered on 01/07/2019 under the above mentioned
reference number.

 

Article 6(3) of Regulation 1049/2001 states that, in case of an
application relating to a very long document or to a very large number of
documents, the institution may confer with the applicant informally, with
a view to finding a fair solution. 

However the solution under Article 6(3) may concern the number and content
of the documents applied for, but not, in principle, the timeframe for
dealing with the initial request.

 

Based on jurisprudence from the EU Court, we should no longer agree on
handling wide scope requests in batches which would go beyond the 15+15
working days from the day of registering the original request.

Moreover, in its RYANAIR judgment (Judgment of the General Court of 10
December 2010 in Case T-494/08, Ryanair v Commission, ECLI:EU:T:2010:511,
paragraph 34), the General Court confirmed that Article 6(3) may not be
evaded by splitting an application into several, seemingly separate,
parts.

 

The handling of your application, having regard to the volume of the
documents requested, the third parties to be consulted and/or the number
of passages to be censured, would involve an unreasonable administrative
burden and would be disproportionate.

With a view to safeguarding the interests of good administration, we
therefore see ourselves obliged to balance your possible interest in
access against the workload resulting from the processing of your
application. This is in line with the case law of the EU Courts (Judgment
of the Court of Justice of 2 October 2014 in case C-127/13, Strack v
Commission, paragraphs 27-28).

 

We have therefore, as announced in our email of 12/07/2019 and taking into
account the priority indicated in your email of 19/07/2019, proceeded to
the unilateral restriction of the scope of your application to the
documents that can be dealt with within 30 working days counting from the
date of registration of your application. Based on the information
available we have not been able to identify any other conceivable way of
dealing with your request.

Consequently, your application is understood to cover: “Eurogas,
GasNaturally and the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers
(IOGP) documents”.

 

Your application is currently being handled. However, we will not be in a
position to complete the handling of your application within the time
limit of 15 working days, which expire on 22/07/2019.

Therefore, we have to extend the time limit with 15 working days in
accordance with Article 7(3) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 regarding
public access to documents. The new time limit expires on 12/08/2019. 

We apologise for this delay and for any inconvenience this may cause.

 

Best regards,

 

 

 

[1]cid:image001.png@01D03ECB.9741CEE0

European Commission

 

DG ENERGY – Access to documents team
Email: [2][email address]

 

 

 

 

References

Visible links
2. mailto:[email address]

ve_sg.accessdoc (SG), Generalsekretariat der Europäischen Kommission

5 Attachments

Link: [1]File-List
Link: [2]Edit-Time-Data
Link: [3]themeData
Link: [4]colorSchemeMapping

[5]Ares(2019)4873602 - Your initial request for access to documents -
GESTDEM 2019/3745

Sent by ve_sg.accessdoc (SG) <[SG request email]>. All responses have
to be sent to this email address.
Envoyé par ve_sg.accessdoc (SG) <[SG request email]>. Toutes les
réponses doivent être effectuées à cette adresse électronique.

Dear Madam,

 

Please find attached the reply to your initial request for access to
documents registered under the number GESTDEM 2019/3745.

 

Yours faithfully,

 

Access to documents team - RC
SG.C.1
Transparency
Berl. 07/251

[6]cid:image004.gif@01D4F9CD.7B22B0F0

 

 

 

 

References

Visible links
1. file:///tmp/cid:filelist.xml@01D5430F.7C9FB730
2. file:///tmp/cid:editdata.mso
3. file:///tmp/~~themedata~~
4. file:///tmp/~~colorschememapping~~
5. https://webgate.ec.testa.eu/Ares/ext/doc...