Communications on Brazil

The request was successful.

Dear DG Trade,

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:

- Any study, impact assessment, forecast, paper or other document authored or received by DG Trade-officials (including the Commissioner and the Cabinet) in which Jair Bolsonaro or Paulo Guedes were mentioned or discussed between July 2018 and January 2019.

- Any study, impact assessment, forecast, paper or other document authored or received by DG Trade-officials (including the Commissioner and the Cabinet) in which the EU-Mercosur trade agreement was mentioned or discussed between July 2018 and January 2019.

- Any study, impact assessment, forecast, paper or other document authored or received by DG Trade-officials (including the Commissioner and the Cabinet) in which economic and/or market developments in Brazil were mentioned or discussed between July 2018 and January 2019.

- All correspondence (including emails) received or sent by DG Trade-officials (including the Commissioner and the Cabinet) concerning or mentioning Jair Bolsonaro or Paulo Guedes between July 2018 and January 2019.

- All correspondence (including emails) received or sent by DG Trade-officials (including the
Commissioner and the Cabinet) concerning or mentioning the EU-Mercosur trade agreement between July 2018 and January 2019.

- All correspondence (including emails) received or sent by DG Trade-officials (including the Commissioner and the Cabinet) concerning or mentioning economic and/or market developments in Brazil between July 2018 and January 2019.

- A list of meetings including detailed minutes and any other reports of such meetings between or attended by DG Trade-officials (including the Commissioner and his Cabinet members) concerning or mentioning Jair Bolsonaro, Paulo Guedes, the EU-Mercosur trade agreement or economic and/or market developments in Brazil between July 2018 and January 2019.

Should my request be denied wholly or partially, please explain the denial or all deletions referring to specific exemptions in the regulation. Also I expect the partial release of documents, in case of partial exemption according to article 4.6.

Do not hesitate to get back to me should you need any further
information which could facilitate your research. My postal adress below.

Thank you for your assistance.

Yours faithfully,

Hans Wetzels - journalist

Postal adress:
Hans Wetzels
Hereweg 164
6371LZ, Landgraaf
The Netherlands

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Wetzels,
 
Thank you for your e-mail dated 5 February 2019. We hereby acknowledge
receipt of your application for access to documents, which was registered
on 6 February 2019 under reference number GestDem 2019/686.
 
In accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 regarding public access to
European Parliament, Council and Commission documents, your application
will be handled within 15 working days. The time limit will expire on 27
February 2019. In case this time limit needs to be extended, you will be
informed in due course.
 
You have lodged your application via the AsktheEU.org website. Please note
that this is a private third-party website which has no link with any
institution of the European Union. Therefore, the European Commission
cannot be held accountable for any technical issues or problems linked to
the use of this system.
 
Please note that the private third party running the AsktheEU.org website
is responsible and accountable for the processing of your personal data
via that website, and not the European Commission. For further information
on your rights, please refer to the third party’s privacy policy.
 
We understand that the third party running that website usually publishes
the content of applicants’ correspondence with the European Commission on
that website. This includes the personal data that you may have
communicated to the European Commission (e.g. your private postal
address).
 
Similarly, the third party publishes on that website any reply that the
Commission will send to the email address of the applicants generated by
the AsktheEU.org website.
 
If you do not wish your correspondence with the European Commission to be
published on the AsktheEU.org website, you can provide us with an
alternative, private e-mail address for further correspondence. In that
case, the European Commission will send all future electronic
correspondence addressed to you only to that private address.
 
Yours sincerely,
 
Access to Documents Team
European Commission
DG TRADE
 
 

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Dear Mr Wetzels,
 
We refer to your application for access to documents registered by DG
TRADE on with reference number GestDem 2019/686.
 
Having gone in more detail through the relevant files, we have established
that your application concerns potentially a very large number of
documents, which need to be assessed individually. Such a detailed
analysis cannot be carried out within the normal time limits set out in
Article 7 of Regulation 1049/2001.
 
However, Regulation 1049/2001 also provides for a possibility to
communicate with applicants, like you, in order to find a fair solution
when an application relates to a very long document or concerns a very
large number of documents (Article 6(3)).
 
In accordance with the case law of the EU Courts, such a solution can only
concern the content or the number of documents applied for, not the
deadline for replying. This means that the scope of requests concerning a
very large number of documents must be reduced in a way that would enable
its treatment within the applicable deadlines.
 
Based on the above-mentioned provision, we would kindly ask you to specify
in more detail the objective and context of your request in the documents
requested, and whether you could narrow down the scope of your request, so
as to reduce it to a more manageable amount of documents as part of a fair
solution. We also would like you to specify what kind of documents you are
interested in on the EU-Mercosur trade agreement. We need more search
criteria to your access to documents request, in order to retrieve a
manageable amount of documents.
 
To give you an idea of the overall timeline, and taking into account other
applications for access to documents and other tasks that the staff
concerned have to deal with during the same period, we would expect to be
able to process up to 25 documents within 30 working days. This includes:
-              assessment of the content of the documents in light of the
exceptions of Article 4 of Regulation 1049/2001;
-              third-party consultations under Article 4(4) of Regulation
1049/2001;
-              final assessment of the documents in light of the comments
received;
-              drafting of the reply;
-              redaction of those parts of the documents to which one or
several exceptions apply(ies);
-              internal approval of the draft decision on your request;
-              preparation of the reply and the documents for dispatch.
 
We would kindly ask you for a swift reply to our invitation for a fair
solution. In the absence of a reply within five working days, we will
unilaterally restrict the scope of your application to those parts that
can be dealt with within the applicable deadlines.
 
Thank you in advance for your cooperation and understanding.
 
Yours sincerely,
 
 
Access to Documents team
 
 
European Commission 
DG TRADE
 

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Dear Trade,

Thank you for your prompt reply.
Since I am not directly bound by a very strict deadline at this moment, I would opt for extending the deadline of this request instead of limiting the scope. Would that also be a possibility if I from my side give you the green light for that?

Yours faithfully,

Hans Wetzels

Dear Mr Wetzels,

Unfortunately we are bound by the legal deadlines. Therefore the only possibility is to agree with you a restricted scope of your access to documents request, resulting in a number of documents which is manageable for us within the given deadlines.

Please consider which documents are most relevant to you.

If you fail to do so, we will have to take the decision ourselves and reduce the scope of your application to those parts that can be dealt with within the applicable deadlines.

Yours sincerely,
Access to Documents Team

European Commission
DG TRADE

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Dear Trade,

In that case I would ask you to prioritize studies, impact assessments, forecasts, papers or documents received by DG Trade-officials, correspondence (including emails) and detailed minutes of meetings (between or attended by DG Trade-officials including the Commissioner and his Cabinet members) concerning or mentioning Jair Bolsonaro, Paulo Guedes and future market developments/market opportunities for European companies in Brazil between July 2018 and January 2019.

Yours faithfully,

Hans Wetzels

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Wetzels,
 
We refer to your e-mail 05/02/2019 in which you make a request for access
to documents, registered on 06/02/2019 under the above mentioned reference
number.
 
Your application is currently being handled. However, we will not be in a
position to complete the handling of your application within the time
limit of 15 working days, which expires on 27/02/2019.
 
An extended time limit is needed as your application concerns documents
held by different Services which must be consulted.
 
Therefore, we have to extend the time limit with 15 working days in
accordance with Article 7(3) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 regarding
public access to documents. The new time limit expires on 20/03/2019.
 
We apologise for this delay and for any inconvenience this may cause.
 
Yours sincerely,
Access to Documents Team
European Commission
DG TRADE
 

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Dear Trade,

This request is (again) long overdue. Can I expect an answer and the requested information soon?

Yours faithfully,

Hans Wetzels

Dear Mr Wetzels,

We apologize for any inconvenience the delay has caused you.

Please be assured that we are speeding up the process as much as possible. The relevant documents to your request have been identified. The cause of the delay is the consultation by other services.

An internal approval process has been launched in the meantime. We will send the documents you have requested as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely,
Access to Documents Team

European Commission
DG TRADE

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ve_trade.c.3(TRADE), Trade

20 Attachments

Please find attached document Ares(2019)2673845 from DEMARTY Jean-Luc (TRADE) dated 17/04/2019.

Veuillez trouver ci-joint le document Ares(2019)2673845 de DEMARTY Jean-Luc (TRADE) daté du 17/04/2019.