Meetings with IAI, Elbit and Ceiia

The request was partially successful.

Dear European Maritime Safety 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:

For the period between 1 January 2016 to date:
- a list of all meetings held by EMSA with the following companies' representatives and/or intermediaries for these companies: Israel Aerospace Industries (or IAI), Elbit Systems, and/or CEiiA. The list should include: date of the meeting, individuals attending and their organisational affiliation, as well as the issues discussed;
- all minutes and other reports of these meetings;
- all correspondence, including attachments (including, but not limited to, emails, letters, and/or telephone call notes), between EMSA and any of the three companies mentioned above, including any intermediaries representing their interests; and
- all documents prepared for the purpose of these meetings and/or exchanged during the course of these meetings.
Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any doubts or question in regards to this request.

Thank you in advance

Yours faithfully,
Aneta Jerska

Documents, European Maritime Safety Agency

Dear Ms. Aneta Jerska,

Thank your interest in EMSA activities. Please find that your application for access to documents - “Agreements regarding EMSA maritime information services” has been registered with the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA). Your application shall be processed in line with the provisions of Regulation (EC) No.1049/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council regarding public access to documents, and you shall receive a reply within 15 working days.

We would like to draw your attention that for applications in the remit of Regulation (EC) No.1049/2001, the recommended channel to be used is : EMSA website/ Publications/ EMSA Documents/Documents Request Form, that will ensure a prompt handling. Thank you for understanding.

Kind regards,
EMSA Document Access Coordinator

show quoted sections

Documents, European Maritime Safety Agency

1 Attachment

Dear Ms. Aneta Jerska,

This is a reply to your applications for access to documents registered on
the 24^th of January and the 10^th of February 2020 by EMSA whereby you
request “documents which contain the following information:

“For the period between 1 January 2016 to date:
- a list of all meetings held by EMSA with the following companies'
representatives and/or intermediaries for these companies: Israel
Aerospace Industries (or IAI), Elbit Systems, and/or CEiiA. The list
should include: date of the meeting, individuals attending and their
organisational affiliation, as well as the issues discussed;
- all minutes and other reports of these meetings;
- all correspondence, including attachments (including, but not limited
to, emails, letters, and/or telephone call notes), between EMSA and any of
the three companies mentioned above, including any intermediaries
representing their interests; and
- all documents prepared for the purpose of these meetings and/or
exchanged during the course of these meetings.”

The Agency processed your application in line with the provisions of
Regulation (EC) No.1049/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council
regarding public access to documents.

For the period between 1st of January 2016 to 15th of November 2019 please
refer to the “Meetings with aerospace industry” application published on
asktheeu.org platform submitted by applicant Luisa Izuzquiza in October
2019 and replied by EMSA in November 2019.

For the period between 16th of November 2019 to 24th of January 2020
(registration date of your first application) please find the following:

 1. “a list of all meetings held by EMSA with the following companies'
representatives and/or intermediaries for these companies: Israel
Aerospace Industries (or IAI), Elbit Systems, and/or CEiiA. The list
should include: date of the meeting, individuals attending and their
organisational affiliation, as well as the issues discussed”

 

o There is no document encompassing a new list of meetings for this
period nor containing the information as requested above.

 

 2. “all minutes and other reports of these meetings”

 

o The only documents exchanged with the contractor CEIIA in course of
regular contract implementation meetings are the weekly reports of
which there is already a sample published as reply to the application
mentioned above.
o As previously stated, content of this reports falls under the
exceptions stipulated by Articles 4(1) letters a) and b) and article
4(2) of the Regulation No.1049/2001 for the following reasons:

 

o The information contained in the documents constitutes personal data,
in particular the names of individuals. The disclosure would undermine
the protection of privacy and the integrity of the individual, in
particular in accordance with European Union legislation regarding the
protection of personal data.
o The information contained in the documents entails technical
information, information relating to methodologies, know-how, specific
pricing, information carrying a commercial value and operational data.
Therefore, disclosure to the general public, including a potential
competitor on the market, of such information relating to the
execution of a service or of an action would undermine the protection
of the relevant legal person’s expertise, strategy and creativity and
thus their commercial strength. Furthermore, with regards the
operational data, disclosure of such information would be tantamount
to disclosing the weaknesses and strengths of operations and pose a
risk to their security. Consequently, the course of ongoing and future
similar operations would be hampered by depriving the operations of
any strategy and element of surprise, ultimately defeating their
purpose to counter and prevent cross-border crime and unauthorized
border crossings.

 

Concluding, all related information falling under the above mentioned
exceptions shall be protected as it is very likely that disclosure of it
would be liable to actually undermine the interest protected by the
exception in question.

 

Furthermore, a partial release of the documents could not be undertaken as
the redacting would be disproportional in relation to the parts that are
eligible for disclosure, simultaneously undermining the principle of sound
administration. More specifically, the administrative burden necessary to
identify and redact the releasable materials would be disproportionate to
the public interest in the disclosure exercise itself, while the released
documents would not convey any informative value due to their
significantly reduced form. Consequently, the partial disclosure of the
document(s) at issue must be refused owing to the particular circumstances
of the present case.

 

 

 3. “all correspondence, including attachments (including, but not limited
to, emails, letters, and/or telephone call notes), between EMSA and
any of the three companies mentioned above, including any
intermediaries representing their interests”

 

o Besides the above referenced documents (weekly reports),
correspondence with the contractor CEIIA entailed only the initiation
of a specific contract amendment and afterwards cancellation of it.

 

Please refer to the attachments to this email in which you will find that
content falling under exceptions stipulated by Articles 4(1) letter b) and
4(2) of the Regulation No.1049/2001 have been redacted for the following
reasons:

 

o The information contained in the documents constitutes personal data,
in particular the names of individuals. The disclosure would undermine
the protection of privacy and the integrity of the individual, in
particular in accordance with European Union legislation regarding the
protection of personal data.
o The information contained in the documents entails specific pricing.
Therefore, disclosure to the general public, including a potential
competitor on the market, of such information relating to the
execution of a service would undermine the protection of the relevant
legal person’s commercial strength on the market.

 

Concluding, all related information falling under the above mentioned
exceptions shall be protected as it is very likely that disclosure of it
would be liable to actually undermine the interest protected by the
exception in question.

 

 4. “all documents prepared for the purpose of these meetings and/or
exchanged during the course of these meetings.”

o Please refer to our reply to item no.2 above.

 

Furthermore, a separate assessment of the application for access to
documents was performed in order to assess if there is an overriding
public interest in disclosure that would justify non-application of the
exception in article 4(2) of the Regulation. With regards to this aspect,
it was found that there is no such interest at stake as to justify public
disclosure overriding the mentioned exceptions.

Note that, in line with Article 7(2) of Regulation (EC) No.1049/2001 of
the European Parliament and of the Council regarding public access to
documents, you may file a confirmatory application within 15 working days
of receiving this email.

I remain at your disposal for further clarifications.

Kind regards,

EMSA Document Access Coordinator