DG CONNECT's lobby meetins on DSA/DMA
Dear DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology,
Under the right of access to documents in the EU treaties, as developed in Regulation 1049/2001, I am requesting:
- All documents - including but not limited to minutes, (hand-written) notes, audio recordings, verbatim reports, operational conclusions, lines to take, e-mails, and presentations - related to the meetings members of DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology below the level of Commissioner and Cabinet have held with interest representatives on the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act (including previous iterations of the proposals such as New Competition Tool and Markets Investigation Tool) since 01 August 2020 until today;
- All correspondence (i.e. any emails, correspondence, telephone call notes, and/or text messages including WhatsApp exchanges) between members of DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology below the level of Commissioner and Cabinet have held with interest representatives on the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act (including previous iterations of the proposals such as New Competition Tool and Markets Investigation Tool) since 01 August 2020 until today.
Considering the current situation and challenges it presents for post delivery, I would appreciate receiving all the replies electronically via the asktheeu.org website.
Yours faithfully,
Max Bank
on behalf of LobbyControl
LobbyControl
Am Justizzentrum 7
50939 Cologne
Germany
Link: [1]File-List
Link: [2]Edit-Time-Data
Link: [3]themeData
Link: [4]colorSchemeMapping
[5]Ares(2021)1318449 - RE: access to documents request - DG CONNECT's
lobby meetins on DSA/DMA - Gestdem 2021/0798
Sent by ve_sg.accessdoc (SG) <[DG CONNECT request email]>. All responses have
to be sent to this email address.
Envoyé par ve_sg.accessdoc (SG) <[DG CONNECT request email]>. Toutes les
réponses doivent être effectuées à cette adresse électronique.
Dear Sir,
Thank you for your e-mail of 16 February 2021. We hereby acknowledge
receipt of your application for access to documents, which was registered
on 17 February 2021 under reference number GESTDEM 2021/0798.
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 10 March 2021. In case this time limit needs
to be extended, you will be informed in due course.
You have lodged your application via 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 Commission.
For further information on your rights, please refer to the third party’s
privacy policy.
We understand that the third party running the AsktheEU.org website
usually publishes the content of applicants’ correspondence with the
Commission on that website. This includes the personal data that you may
have communicated to the 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 that your correspondence with the Commission is
published on a private third-party website such as AsktheEU.org, you can
provide us with an alternative, private e-mail address for further
correspondence. In that case, the Commission will send all future
electronic correspondence addressed to you only to that private address,
and it will use only that private address to reply to your request. You
should still remain responsible to inform the private third-party website
about this change of how you wish to communicate with, and receive a reply
from, the Commission.
For information on how we process your personal data visit our page
[6]Privacy statement – access to documents.
Yours faithfully,
ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS TEAM (GD)
[7]cid:image001.png@01D45409.F767C980
European Commission
Secretariat-General
SG C.1
[8][email address]
Dear DG CONNECT Access to Document team,
thank you very much for registering my application for access to documents under reference number GESTDEM 2021/0798.
I am looking forward to hearing from you within 15 working days (10/03/2021).
Yours faithfully,
Max Bank
Max Bank
on behalf of LobbyControl
LobbyControl
Am Justizzentrum 7
50939 Cologne
Germany
Link: [1]File-List
Link: [2]Edit-Time-Data
Link: [3]themeData
Link: [4]colorSchemeMapping
[5]Ares(2021)1661920 - Your application for access to documents RefGestDem
2021/0798
Sent by ve_cnect.public_access_to_documents (CNECT)
<[email address]>. All responses have to be
sent to this email address.
Envoyé par ve_cnect.public_access_to_documents (CNECT)
<[email address]>. Toutes les réponses
doivent être effectuées à cette adresse électronique.
Dear Mr Bank,
We refer to your e-mail of 16 February 2021 wherein you make a request for
access to documents pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 of the
European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2001 regarding public
access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents
(‘Regulation 1049/2001’), registered on 17 February 2021 under the
above-mentioned reference number.
Your application reads as follows:
‘Dear DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology,
Under the right of access to documents in the EU treaties, as developed in
Regulation 1049/2001, I am requesting:
- All documents - including but not limited to minutes, (hand-written)
notes, audio recordings, verbatim reports, operational conclusions, lines
to take, e-mails, and presentations - related to the meetings members of
DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology below the level of
Commissioner and Cabinet have held with interest representatives on the
Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act (including previous
iterations of the proposals such as New Competition Tool and Markets
Investigation Tool) since 01 August 2020 until today;
- All correspondence (i.e. any emails, correspondence, telephone call
notes, and/or text messages including WhatsApp exchanges) between members
of DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology below the level of
Commissioner and Cabinet have held with interest representatives on the
Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act (including previous
iterations of the proposals such as New Competition Tool and Markets
Investigation Tool) since 01 August 2020 until today.
Considering the current situation and challenges it presents for post
delivery, I would appreciate receiving all the replies electronically via
the asktheeu.org website. [...]’’
Your application concerns a very large number of documents. At this stage,
according to our estimate more than 300 documents would fall within the
scope of your request.
Due to the scope of your request, the work needed to deal with your
application would cover the following steps:
- Individual analysis of the documents and establishment of the final and
complete list of the documents falling under the scope of your request,
- Scanning of the documents which are not in pdf format,
- Preliminary individual assessment of the content of the documents in
light of the exceptions contained in Article 4 of Regulation 1049/2001,
- For many of the documents, third party consultations under Article 4(4)
and/or 4(5) of Regulation 1049/2001,
- Final assessment of the documents in light of the comments received,
- Redaction of those parts of the documents to which one or several
exceptions apply,
- Preparation and finalisation of the reply for the request,
- Preparation of the reply and the documents for dispatch.
It follows from the above that the work needed for the treatment of your
request cannot expected to be completed within the normal time limit set
out in Article 7 of Regulation 1049/2001.
Article 6(3) of the Regulation 1049/2001 provides that, in the event of an
application relating to a very long or a very large number of documents,
the institution concerned may confer with the applicant informally with a
view to finding a fair solution. In accordance with the case law of the
Union Courts, the proposal for a fair solution aims to balance the
interest of the applicant against the workload resulting from the
processing of the application in order to safeguard the interests of good
administration (Judgments of 6 December 2001, Council v Hautala, Case C
353/99 P, EU:C:2001: 661, para. 30, and of 2 October 2014, Strack v
Commission, Case C 127/13 P, EU:C:2014:2250, para.27). Such solution can
only concern the content or the number of documents applied for, not the
deadline for replying (Judgment of the Court of Justice of 2 October 2014
in case C- 127/13, Guido Strack v Commission, paragraphs 26-28). This
means that the scope of the request must be reduced in a way that would
enable its treatment within the extended deadline of 15 + 15 working days.
Taking this into account and based on the above-mentioned provision, we
would kindly ask you to specify the objective of your request, your
specific interest in the requested documents and whether you could narrow
down the scope of your request, so as to reduce it to a more manageable
amount of documents.
In order to help you narrow down your wide scope request please note that
the following documents per requested category of documents have been
identified.
1. Back to office reports: approximately 70 documents
2. Position papers: approximately 50 documents
3. Correspondence (including e-mails): approximately 190
4. Briefings: 1 document
We also refer to the pages 35 – 37 of Part 2 of the Impact Assessment of
the Digital Services Act, where you can find a list of stakeholders with
which the Commission had bilateral meetings and/or from which the
Commission has received position papers in the course of the preparation
of the Impact Assessment:
[6]https://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/docume....
Taking into account the other ‘access to documents’ requests being handled
within DG CONNECT at the same time, the global workload of the concerned
staff during the same period, the human resources available and the need
to safeguard good administration, we consider that in the remaining
timeframe we would be able to deal with a maximum of 15 documents.
In order to enable us to respect the time limits of Regulation 1049/2001,
we would ask you for a swift response to our proposal for a fair solution.
Please respond within three working days, i.e. by 10 March 2021 eob, at
the latest.
Please send your response by email to the following address:
[7][email address]
In the absence of a reply within three working days, we will unilaterally
restrict the scope of your application to those parts that can be dealt
with within the extended deadline of 30 working days counting from the
date of registration of your application.
Thank you in advance for your cooperation.
The DG CONNECT Access to Documents Team
[8]cid:image001.png@01D3AF19.959C0670
European Commission
DG Connect – ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS
BU25 – Avenue de Beaulieu 25
B-1160 Brussels/Belgium
References
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5. https://webgate.ec.testa.eu/Ares/documen...
6. https://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/docume...
7. mailto:[email address]
Link: [1]File-List
Link: [2]Edit-Time-Data
Link: [3]themeData
Link: [4]colorSchemeMapping
[5]Ares(2021)1735562 - Holding reply-Your application for access to
documents RefGestDem 2021/0798
Sent by ve_cnect.public_access_to_documents (CNECT)
<[email address]>. All responses have to be
sent to this email address.
Envoyé par ve_cnect.public_access_to_documents (CNECT)
<[email address]>. Toutes les réponses
doivent être effectuées à cette adresse électronique.
Dear Mr Bank,
We refer to your e-mail of 16 February 2021 wherein you make a request
for access to documents, registered on 17 February 2021 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 today.
An extended time limit is needed as your application concerns a large
number of documents.
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 31 March 2021.
We apologise for this delay and for any inconvenience this may cause.
Yours faithfully,
DG CONNECT Access to Documents Team
[6]cid:image001.png@01D3AF19.959C0670
European Commission
DG Connect – ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS
BU25 – Avenue de Beaulieu 25
B-1160 Brussels/Belgium
References
Visible links
1. file:///tmp/cid:filelist.xml@01D71591.68A4C8F0
2. file:///tmp/cid:editdata.mso
3. file:///tmp/~~themedata~~
4. file:///tmp/~~colorschememapping~~
5. https://webgate.ec.testa.eu/Ares/documen...
Dear DG Connect Access to Document Team,
I refer to your e-mail on the 5th March 2021 on my request for access to documents registered under GestDem 2021/0798.
In your e-mail, you ask me to specify the objective of my request and the specific interest in the requested documents: I am interested in understanding the lobbying targeting the DSA/DMA package in the months leading to its presentation. Such information is in the public interest in order to know who has tried to influence the policy-making and how. There is a particular public interest in assessing these specific documents, as they relate to a process that led to two key Commission proposals that will strongly affect citizens’ lives and the business environment for small and medium enterprises in the EU.
I understand the need to reduce the scope of the request to make it manageable, but reducing the amount of documents to 15 documents as proposed is unnecessarily restrictive in our view. We are happy to negotiate a fair solution, but we do not accept reducing the scope to 15 documents.
Instead, we propose to restrict the scope of the request to:
1. Correspondence (including e-mails)
2. Back to office reports
Please let me know as soon as possible if you accept this new proposal for a fair solution. I ask that you send me confirmation before proceeding to processing the documents.
Thank you in advance for your cooperation.
Kind regards,
Max Bank
on behalf of LobbyControl
LobbyControl
Am Justizzentrum 7
50939 Cologne
Germany
Link: [1]File-List
Link: [2]Edit-Time-Data
Link: [3]themeData
Link: [4]colorSchemeMapping
[5]Ares(2021)2241322 - 2nd Holding reply - Your application for access to
documents RefGestDem 2021/0798
Sent by ve_cnect.public_access_to_documents (CNECT)
<[email address]>. All responses have to be
sent to this email address.
Envoyé par ve_cnect.public_access_to_documents (CNECT)
<[email address]>. Toutes les réponses
doivent être effectuées à cette adresse électronique.
Dear Mr Bank,
We refer to your request for access to documents introduced via e-mail on
16 February 2021 and registered on 17 February 2021 under the
above-mentioned reference number. We also refer to our holding reply sent
to you on 10 March 2021 (our reference Ares(2021)1735562).
Your application is currently being handled. However, we have not been in
a position to complete the handling of your application within the time
limit, which expires today.
Please be assured that the reply is about to come.
We apologise for this delay and for any inconvenience this may cause.
Yours faithfully,
DG CONNECT Access to Documents Team
[6]cid:image001.png@01D3AF19.959C0670
European Commission
DG Connect – ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS
BU25 – Avenue de Beaulieu 25
B-1160 Brussels/Belgium
References
Visible links
1. file:///tmp/cid:filelist.xml@01D7265F.47B8F010
2. file:///tmp/cid:editdata.mso
3. file:///tmp/~~themedata~~
4. file:///tmp/~~colorschememapping~~
5. https://webgate.ec.testa.eu/Ares/documen...
*** Advance copy by e-mail and registered mail with acknowledgement of
receipt ***
Dear Mr Bank,
Please find attached document Ares(2021)2738945 regarding "Your request
for public access to documents – GestDem 2021/0798" sent by Mr Roberto
Viola, General Director of DG CONNECT on 23/04/2021.
Best regards,
European Commission
DG CONNECT — ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS
Avenue de Beaulieu, 25
B-1160 Brussels/Belgium
Dear DG CONNECT Access to Document team,
I must say that I am deeply disappointed by the response to my access to document request under under reference number GESTDEM 2021/0798.
We have proposed a fair solution by making a proposal to disclose
1. Correspondence (including e-mails)
2. Back to office reports
only.
Your response to this is by far now compromise. To restrict the amount of documents to less than 10 documents despite the far larger scope of my request is something we will publicly take note of and express our disappointment.
Yours sincerely,
Max Bank
on behalf of LobbyControl
LobbyControl
Am Justizzentrum 7
50939 Cologne
Germany