Dear Sir,

Thank you for your request for access to documents.

Unfortunately you have not indicated your postal address that is required for registering and handling your request in line with the procedural requirements. Please send us your full postal address at your earliest convenience. Pending your reply, we reserve the right to refuse the registration of your request.

You may, of course, use directly the electronic form for entering your request:
http://ec.europa.eu/transparency/regdoc/...

Best regards,

TAXUD ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS

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Dear Sir,

Our replies are always forwarded in electronic form and in some cases we send also our replies at the same time via registered mail. Therefore, under Reg 1049/2001 we cannot deal with your request unless we receive your postal address. Pending your reply, we reserve the right to refuse the registration of your request.

Kind regards,

TAXUD ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS

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Dear Sir,

With respect to your questions regarding the provision of a postal address (copied below), please find our explanations below.

On 1 April 2014, the postal address became a mandatory feature for the purpose of introducing a request for access to documents.

The decision to ask for a postal address from applicants for access to documents was triggered by the following considerations:

• The need to obtain legal certainty as regards the date of receipt of the reply by the applicant under Regulation 1049/2001. Indeed, as foreseen by Article 297 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), […] 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. Replies triggering the possibility for administrative or judicial redress are therefore transmitted via registered mail with acknowledgement of receipt. This requires an indication of a valid postal address by the applicant;

• The need to direct the Commission's scarce resources first of all to those requests which have been filed by "real" applicants. With only a compulsory indication of an e-mail address, applicants can easily introduce requests under an invented identity or under the identity of a third person. Asking for a postal address helps the Commission to protect the administration, as well as other citizens and legal persons, from abuse;

• For similar reasons, asking for a compulsory indication of a postal address enables the Commission services to verify whether Article 6(3) of the Regulation, on voluminous requests, is being evaded by introducing several requests under different identities. Indeed, in its Ryanair judgment, the General Court confirmed that Article 6(3) cannot be evaded by splitting the application into a number of applications. The Commission would like to point out that, in 2012/2013, it received some 57 confirmatory requests from what it suspects to be one single applicant operating under 13 different identities;

• Knowing whether the applicant is an EU resident in the sense of Article 2(1) of Regulation 1049/2001 is a precondition for the purpose of correctly applying the exception in Article 4(1)(b) of Regulation 1049/2001 (protection of the privacy and integrity of the individual), which has to be interpreted in accordance with Data Protection Regulation 45/2001. Article 9 of Regulation 45/2001 requires the adequacy of the level of protection afforded by the third country or international organisation when transmitting personal data to third-country residents or legal persons. It follows that, in case of requests for documents which include personal data, the correct application of the data protection rules cannot be ensured in the absence of a postal address enabling the Commission to ascertain that the minimum data protection standards will be respected.

All of these considerations show that the request for and the consequent processing of a 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 (a) of Data Protection Regulation 45/2001, namely providing a smooth and effective access to documents.

The Commission has been applying this approach since 1 April 2014, because of numerous problems encountered by the Commission in its previous practice (legal uncertainty, false identities used etc.). We also would like to point out that other institutions, such as the Court of Justice, already ask for the address in their respective electronic forms for access to documents requests.

We therefore kindly reiterate our request to you to provide a full postal address, so we can duly register and handle your request. Please note that, once we receive your postal address, we will register your request for access as an initial application for access to documents in the meaning of Article 6(1) of Regulation 1049/2001. The deadline for handling your initial request shall run as from the moment of registration of your request following the submission of your postal address.

Thank you in advance.

Kind regards,

TAXUD ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS

nal Message-----
From: Felix Gaul [mailto:[FOI #5774 email]]
Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2018 7:48 PM
To: TAXUD ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS
Subject: RE: access to documents request - Pharma List" of the TARIC code (TARif Intégré Communautaire; Integrated Tariff of the European Communities) in machine-readable form

Dear Taxation and Customs Union,

Please note I cannot follow your refusal under Reg. 1049/2001 = https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/...

I kindly ask you to specify, why my postal address is mandatory for the answer of my request.

Yours faithfully,

Felix Gaul

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