Ref. Ares(2013)1035571 - 13/05/2013
EUROPEAN EXTERNAL ACTION SERVICE
Corporate
Board
Secretariat
Brussels,
EEAS
REPORT ON ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS
FOR THE YEARS 2011 AND 2012
A. Introduction
Article 17.1 of Regulation (EC) n° 1049/2001 of the European Parliament and of the
Council of 30 May 2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and
Commission documents 1 (hereafter referred to as “the Regulation”) provides that
“Each
institution shall publish annually a report for the preceding year including the number of
cases in which the institution refused to grant access to documents, the reasons for such
refusals and the number of sensitive documents not recorded in the register.” The entry into force of the Council Decision establishing the European External Action
Service in July 2010 2 and the subsequent creation of the new service under the authority
of the High Representative on 1 January 2011 constituted a new administrative challenge
as the newly created service had to build its own administrative structure, distinct from
those of the European Commission and of the General Secretariat of the Council
respectively.
This report is the first report on access to documents for the European External Action
Service and it covers the two first years of existence of the EEAS, 2011 and 2012.
1
OJ L145, 31.5.2001, p. 43.
2
Council Decision 2010/427/EU of 26th July 2010, OJ L201, 3.8.2010, p. 30.
Service Européen pour l'Action Extérieure, B-1046 Bruxelles / Europese dienst voor extern optreden, B-1046 Brussel -
Belgium. Telephone: (32-2) 584 11 11.
B.
Regulatory, administrative and practical measures
Pursuant to Art. 1 of the Council Decision establishing the European External Action
Service 3 and in order to comply with the Regulation, the High Representative has taken
on 19th July, 2011, a Decision on the EEAS rules regarding Access to documents. The
Decision has been published in the Official Journal C243 dated 20/8/2011, p. 16.
This Decision does in particular provide for rules for processing initial and confirmatory
applications, procedures for consultation concerning third party documents held by the
EEAS, as well as requests for consultation received from other institutions or from
Member States.
The task of Access to Document Co-ordinator was given to the Corporate Board
Secretariat, which was staffed as appropriate.
C. Key developments
The first tasks of the Access to Document Co-ordinator when appointed in May 2011
have been to:
Create a first webpage for access to documents, with the view to facilitate access to
the documents held by the EEAS;
Set up a registry for requests for access to documents received by the EEAS;
Deal with incoming requests.
The first webpage for access to documents held by the EEAS has been operational since
the summer 2011. It can be reached under the “EU and citizens” tab on the EEAS index
webpage. It includes a reference to the Regulation, as well as to the HR Decision
regarding Access to documents.
The webpage gives access to a webform enabling the user to send a request for access to
documents, as well as contact details by post or fax.
It is envisaged to set up a public register of documents for the EEAS: this public registry
will allow access to documents webpage. The EEAS register has already been set up by a
decision by the Chief Operating Officer (PROC EEAS(2011) 004 and the IT application
to put it online is being developed .
A register for requests for access to documents received by the EEAS has been set up. It
mainly aims at monitoring the follow up of the requests inside the EEAS and keeping
track of the documents to which access has been given under a preceding request.
3
And in particular, its paragraphs 2 and 3, stating :
“2. The EEAS, which has its headquarters in Brussels, shall be a functionally autonomous body of
the European Union, separate from the General Secretariat of the Council and from the
Commission with the legal capacity necessary to perform its tasks and attain its objectives.
3. The EEAS shall be placed under the authority of the High Representative of the Union for
Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (‘High Representative’).”
D. Initial applications for access to documents
The EEAS has dealt with two main types of requests for access to documents in 2011/12.
• On the one hand it has provided advice to the Secretariat General of the European
Commission for requests for access to documents addressed to the services of the
European Commission using the application form for access to a document held
by the Commission.
• On the other hand it has treated requests for access to documents held by the
EEAS, received via its own access to documents webform and postal and fax
addresses.
It should be noted that the statistics below reflect the number of applications and not of
requested documents. In practice, applications may cover a single document or, in
numerous cases, several documents, or even entire files concerning a specific issue.
The following table indicated the number of initial applications treated by the EEAS.
Requests sent to the Commission
Requests received directly
and assigned to the EEAS
by the EEAS
Q1 - 2011
25
2
Q2 - 2011
78
10
Q3 - 2011
27
3
Q4 - 2011
30
6
Total 2011
160
21
181
of which 112 requests (61,87%) came from the academic sector
Q1 - 2012
20
22
Q2 - 2012
35
29
Q3 - 2012
15
33
Q4 - 2012
36
19
Total 2012
106 103
209
of which 96 requests (45,93%) came from the academic sector
Grand Total
266
124
389
of which 208 requests (53,47%) came from the academic sector
A positive reply and full access to the documents requested was given to 71,72% of the
initial applications (279 requests).
For 8 requests, additional information was asked from the requestor, yet no answer was
received.
Finally, no documents matching the request were found in 0,77% of the cases (3
requests).
12,08% of the cases (47 requests) were subject to a full refusal and partial access was
given to 6,43% of the initial applications (25 requests).
The grounds for, partial or total, refusal most frequently evoked were 4:
The protection of the public interest as regards public security (Art. 4.1.(a) first
indent) for 4.17% of the cases (3 requests);
The protection of the public interest as regards defence and military matters (Art.
4.1.(a) second indent) for 1,39% of the cases (1 request);
The protection of the public interest as regards international relations (Art. 4.1.(a)
third indent) for 87,50% of the cases (63 requests);
The protection of privacy and the integrity of the individual (Art. 4.1.(b)) for 16,67%
of the cases (12 requests);
The institution’s decision-making process where the decision has not yet been taken
(Art. 4.3.) for 20,83% of the cases (15 requests).
It is to be noted that the EEAS has provided the services of the European Commission
with the elements for replying to initial applications addressed to the Commission, but
has not replied on its behalf for what concerns the totally or partially negative replies,
thereby respecting the processing flow set up in the Regulation and giving maximum
support to the Commission service concerned. However, in order to speed up the
answering process, when the document requested could be made public, it was sent
directly by the EEAS to the requestor.
E. Cooperation with other Institutions for access to documents
The EEAS has been consulted regularly (64 times in 2012) by the transparency service of
the General Secretariat of the Council, mainly on documents that were produced under
the responsibility of services that were transferred from the General Secretariat of the
Council to the EEAS when the EEAS has been set up.
There were also a few occurrences when the EEAS consulted the General Secretariat of
the Council or specific DGs of the Commission, which had produced documents held by
the EEAS.
F. Consultation of third parties
Third parties were consulted for several requests for access to documents, in particular in
two types of cases:
Consultation of third States’ administrations when the requests concern a jointly
produced document, such as joint minutes of meetings or correspondence between the
EEAS and a particular third State.
Consultation of individuals whose personal data were subject to a request for access
to documents. This consultation was made in the framework of Regulation 45/2001 of
the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2000 on the protection
of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data by the Community
institutions and bodies and on the free movement of such data 5. When the data
subject did not agree to the release of his/her personal data, access to the document or
part of the document requested was refused pursuant to art. 4.1.(b) of the Regulation.
4
The percentages given are that of the cases for which the document(s) was/were partially or totally
refused, i.e. a total of 72 cases in 2011 and 2012.
5
OJ L8, 12/1/2001, p. 1.
G. Confirmatory applications for access to documents
The Chief Operating Officer of the EEAS has examined one confirmatory request in 2011
and no such request in 2012, for which he has confirmed the decision to refuse access to
the documents concerned in virtue of Art. 4.2.(2) third indent, protection of the public
interest as regards international relations.
H. Further recourse concerning access to documents requests
There was no occurrence neither of a court proceeding not of a complaint to the
Ombudsman regarding the implementation of the Regulation against the EEAS in 2011
and 2012.
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