Commission policy positions towards the trilogue method, past and present
Dear Secretariat General of the European Commission,
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:
Commission policy and/or formal positions regarding the trilogue negotiation method that developed between the European Parliament and the Council as a regular part of the ordinary legislative procedure. I am interested in any policy or formal position developed in written form reflecting both the Commission's current and past policies/positions (from the trilogue methods' inception after the introduction in the early 2000s).
Yours faithfully,
Dr. Maarten Hillebrandt
Bielefeld University, Germany
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/...
Dear Sir,
Thank you for your request for access to documents. Unfortunately, you
have not indicated your postal address which 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:
[1]http://ec.europa.eu/transparency/regdoc/....
Yours faithfully,
ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS TEAM (GD)
[2]cid:image001.png@01D45409.F767C980
European Commission
Secretariat-General
SG C.1
[3][email address]
Dear Secretariat General of the European Commission,
Under the Regulation 1049/2001/EC, the applicant of access to documents is under no specific obligation to offer a postal address. As a rule, email suffices as a medium of correspondence. In case the requested documents are only available in paper form, may I kindly request you to scan them, and send them to the provided email address ([email address]).
Yours faithfully,
Maarten Hillebrandt
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/...
Dear Mr Hillebrand,
Thank you for your interest in trilogue files and in the trilogue
negotiation method. Your requests of 5 August show that you have an
interest in general in trilogues.
You requests concerning confirmatory decisions of the European Commission
regarding this subject matter cover a wide range of years, which taking
into account the number of confirmatory applications per year (around 300)
would certainly entail a significant administrative burden and would not
be able to be handled within the deadlines prescribed by Regulation
1049/2001.
You kindly signal your willingness to discuss possibilities to limit this
administrative burden. One possibility would be to make a request for
information instead of a request for access to documents. This would allow
the Commission services to reply to your request providing the information
that they have at their disposal, for example regarding your request
focusing on the Commission policy and/or formal positions regarding the
trilogue negotiation method in the ordinary legislative procedure.
As regards your requests to obtain access to confirmatory decisions of the
European Commission concerning requests for access to documents pertaining
both to concrete trilogue negotiation files and documents pertaining to
the trilogue negotiation method in a general sense for the periods from
2001 to 2001 and 2010 to today, pls note that the IT tools at the disposal
of the European Commission do not support a targeted search for filtering
out these confirmatory decisions. As you can understand, any manual search
in around 300 cases per year would be both very time consuming and
excessive in terms of administrative burden.
To avoid this, it would be helpful if you specify the kind of information
you are looking for, so as to allow us, to propose the best way to handle
your requests. In the light of the above, we will not yet register your
requests as requests for access to documents.
Best regards,
Access to documents team (RC)
SG.C.1
Transparency
[1]cid:image004.gif@01D4F9CD.7B22B0F0
References
Visible links
Dear Access to Documents Team of the European Commission,
Many thanks for your response. I would be happy to transform the current request for acess to documents into a request for information. The scope of the request would essentially remain the same, leaving out the specific reference to documents:
"Commission policy and/or formal positions regarding the trilogue negotiation method that developed between the European Parliament and the Council as a regular part of the ordinary legislative procedure. I am interested in any policy or formal position reflecting both the Commission's current and past policies/positions (from the trilogue methods' inception after their introduction in the early 2000s)."
I look forward to your response.
Yours faithfully,
Maarten Hillebrandt
Dear Mr Hillebrandt,
Trilogues have over time become an important practice in the context of
the ordinary legislative procedure.
The three institutions addressed and framed this practice in the Joint
Declaration of 13 June 2007 on practical arrangements for the codecision
procedure
([1]https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/...).
They have further complemented these arrangements in the
Interinstitutional Agreement on Better Law-Making of 13 April 2016
([2]https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/...),
notably in
Section ‘VI. Transparency and Coordination of the Legislative Process’
In point 32, ‘The three Institutions acknowledge that the ordinary
legislative procedure has developed on the basis of regular contacts at
all stages of the procedure. They remain committed to further improving
the work done under the ordinary legislative procedure in line with the
principles of sincere cooperation, transparency, accountability and
efficiency.’
Particular focus is put on transparency, in point 38 ‘The three
Institutions will ensure the transparency of legislative procedures, on
the basis of relevant legislation and case-law, including an appropriate
handling of trilateral negotiations.
The three Institutions will improve communication to the public during the
whole legislative cycle and in particular will announce jointly the
successful outcome of the legislative process in the ordinary legislative
procedure once they have reached agreement, namely through joint press
conferences or any other means considered appropriate.’
Finally the three institutions in point 39. undertake ‘ In order to
facilitate traceability of the various steps in the legislative process,
the three Institutions undertake to identify, by 31 December 2016, ways of
further developing platforms and tools to that end, with a view to
establishing a dedicated joint database on the state of play of
legislative files.
When it comes to the transparency linked to trilogues, we would also like
to draw your attention to the Commission’s responses to the Ombudsman in
the own-initiative inquiry OI/8/2015/JAS concerning transparency of
trilogues, which are available on the Ombudsman’s website under the
following links:
[3]https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/corre...
[4]https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/corre...
[5]https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/corre...
These above documents reflect the Commission’s position in relation to
trilogues. The Commission has essentially the role as facilitator in this
process. The organisation of trilogues and the detailed arrangements for
their conduct are first and foremost a matter for the co-legislators.
Best regards
Susanne Höke
Deputy Head of Unit
[6]Description: Description: Description:
http://www.cc.cec/home/dgserv/comm/helpi...
European Commission
Secretariat-General
SG.G4 – Institutional Affairs
BERL 07/272
B-1049 Brussels/Belgium
+32 2 2952552
[7][email address]
References
Visible links
1. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/...
2. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/...
3. https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/corre...
4. https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/corre...
5. https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/corre...
7. mailto:[email address]