List of Mayday Relay calls issued by Frontex aerial assets (2016 - 2023)
Dear European Border and Coast Guard Agency,
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. A list of all the mayday relay calls issued by Frontex aerial assets concerning migrant boats in distress in the Central Mediterranean Sea. Please provide information from 2016 to 2024, indicating the day that each Mayday Relay call has been sent, and provide the number of people who were on board.
2. Please indicate the place of departure of the boat, the kind of boat as well, and the outcome of the case (e.g. rescue to Italy, Malta, Libya, or Tunisia).
Please also note that, in line with the European Ombudsman's decision in case 104/2020/EWM, I hereby express my wish to receive all correspondence and documents related to this request via the online portal asktheeu.org only.
Yours faithfully,
Chiara Denaro
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[2]Frontex
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[2]Frontex
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[3]www.frontex.europa.eu
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Dear European Border and Coast Guard - Frontex,
Concerning my access to documents request - “List of Mayday Relay calls issued by Frontex aerial assets (2016 - 2023), on 05/03/2024 I received the following answer:
“Please be informed that your request is currently too wide to enable us to conduct an effective search for documents. Therefore, you are invited to consider narrowing down the scope and the timeframe of your request.
Regarding point 1 of your application:
1. A list of all the mayday relay calls issued by Frontex aerial assets concerning migrant boats in distress in the Central Mediterranean Sea. Please provide information from 2016 to 2024, indicating the day that each Mayday Relay call has been sent, and provide the number of people who were on board.
Please kindly further specify the geographical area, consider narrowing down the timeframe, and provide keywords for search.
Regarding point 2 of your application: 2. Please indicate the place of departure of the boat, the kind of boat as well, and the outcome of the case (e.g. rescue to Italy, Malta, Libya, or Tunisia). Please kindly specify what is the timeframe and geographical area of interest?
Additionally, please provide keywords for search. Your application can only be registered once it is sufficiently precise.”
First of all, I would like to underline that I am not responsible for providing search terms or “keywords”, and that your Agency has the legal obligation to help me to better determine which of the documents would fall under my request. There's a specific article in Regulation 1049/2001 on this: Article 6 (2) "If an application is not sufficiently precise, the institution shall ask the applicant to clarify the application and shall assist the applicant in doing so, for example, by providing information on the use of the public registers of documents."
In any case, the wording of my initial request already gives you a pretty clear keyword, which is “mayday”.
Regarding Point 1, and your request to further clarify the geographical area, in addition to my previous indication of the “Central Mediterranean” as an area of interest, I can add that I would like to receive a list of all the Mayday Relay calls issued by aerial assets operating under Joint Operations Themis.
Therefore, “Themis” could potentially be another keyword for the search of documents, but unfortunately, I am not in the position to certainly assume it is appropriate, because I am not aware of Your agency’s data collection policies and methodologies.
Concerning the timeframe of the request - from 2016 to 2023 - I hereby accept your suggestion to narrow it down and ask for information about the Mayday Relay calls issued by Frontex Aerial Surveillance assets in the Central Mediterranean between the 1st of January and the 31 of December 2023.
Concerning Point 2: For each one of the Mayday Relay calls identified in 2023, please find below the information I would like to receive:
- the time and date of launching of each Mayday Relay call
- the number of people onboard reported in each Mayday relay call
- the place of departure of the boat reported in each Mayday relay call
- the type and color of the boat reported in the Mayday relay call
- the outcome of each of the cases for which a Mayday relay call was launched (e.g. place of disembarkation, shipwreck)
I hope this clarifies my request for access to documents,
Yours faithfully,
Chiara Denaro
New information regarding your application is available under this link
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Case Id: PAD-2024-00129
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[2]Frontex
European Border and Coast Guard Agency
Plac Europejski 6, 00-844 Warsaw, Poland
Tel: +48 22 205 9500 · Fax: +48 22 205 9501
[3]www.frontex.europa.eu
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[2]Frontex
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[3]www.frontex.europa.eu
DISCLAIMER: This e-mail message, including any attachments, cannot be
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[2]Frontex
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Plac Europejski 6, 00-844 Warsaw, Poland
Tel: +48 22 205 9500 · Fax: +48 22 205 9501
[3]www.frontex.europa.eu
DISCLAIMER: This e-mail message, including any attachments, cannot be
construed as automatically constituting any form of commitment by Frontex
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New information regarding your application is available under this link
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[2]Frontex
European Border and Coast Guard Agency
Plac Europejski 6, 00-844 Warsaw, Poland
Tel: +48 22 205 9500 · Fax: +48 22 205 9501
[3]www.frontex.europa.eu
DISCLAIMER: This e-mail message, including any attachments, cannot be
construed as automatically constituting any form of commitment by Frontex
, unless its contents clearly indicate otherwise. It is intended solely
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