Editorial charter and grant agreement for the European Newsroom

Alexander Fanta made this access to documents request to Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs

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Dear Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs,

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:

- The grant agreement and editorial charter for the European Newsroom, as mentioned in reply to written question E-005649/2021

- All other documents regarding the European Newsroom, including communication (e-mails, text messages, etc.) with project partners and other stakeholders

Yours faithfully,

Alexander Fanta
netzpolitik.org e.V.
Schönhauser Allee 6-7
10199 Berlin
Germany

GROW-ACCES-DOCUMENTS@ec.europa.eu, Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your e-mail of 10 March 2022. We hereby acknowledge receipt of your application for access to documents, which was registered on 14 March 2022 under reference number GESTDEM 2022/1467.

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 04 April 2022. In case this time-limit needs to be extended, you will be informed in due course.

For information on how we process your personal data visit our page Privacy statement – access to documents.

Yours faithfully,

DG GROW ATD Team

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CNECT-PUBLIC-ACCESS-TO-DOCUMENTS, Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs

1 Attachment

Link: [1]File-List
Link: [2]Edit-Time-Data
Link: [3]themeData
Link: [4]colorSchemeMapping

[5]Your application for access to documents GestDem 2022/1467 -
Ares(2022)2217179  (Please use this link only if you are an Ares user –
Svp, utilisez ce lien exclusivement si vous êtes un(e) utilisateur d’Ares)

Dear Mr Fanta,

We refer to your e-mail of 10 March 2022 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 14 March 2022, under the reference
number GestDem 2022/1467.

By your application you are requesting:

‘Documents which contain the following information:

-          The grant agreement and editorial charter for the European
Newsroom, as mentioned in reply to written question E-005649/2021

-          All other documents regarding the European Newsroom, including
communication (e-mails, text messages, etc.) with project partners and
other stakeholders’

Your application concerns a very large number of documents. Please note
that 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 requires multiple searches for documents, and entails the
following steps:

-          multiple searches for the identification of the documents which
may fall within the scope of the request

-          retrieval, individual analysis of the documents  and
establishment of a 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, and

-          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 limits 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
at this stage the following categories of documents and estimate number of
documents per category have been identified:

·         Email correspondence, approximate number of documents
identified: (75)

o   Documents included as attached files in the emails, pertaining to the
signature of the grant agreement (including the editorial charter), the
budget, the relationship among the consortium partners, other work or
contractual arrangements, approximate number of documents identified: (55)

·         Other standalone documents provided by the European newsroom
project at the proposal stage, on the project and its consortium partners:

o   Documents concerning the legal and financial capacity and status of
the consortium partners, approximate number of documents identified: (100)

o   Documents concerning the human resources of the consortium partners,
approximate number of documents identified: (55)

o   Documents pertaining to the business activities of the consortium
partners, approximate number of documents identified: (20)

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 falling
within the abovementioned categories.

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 by email within 3 working days, i.e. on 30 March 2022 at
the latest.

Please send your response by email to the following address:

[6][email address]

In the absence of a reply within the abovementioned deadline, 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

 

 

European Commission

DG Connect – ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS

BU25 – Avenue de Beaulieu 25

B-1160 Brussels/Belgium

 

 

References

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1. file:///tmp/cid:filelist.xml@01D8406C.714DF650
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5. https://webgate.ec.testa.eu/Ares/documen...
6. mailto:[email address]

Dear access to documents team,

I understand your concern regarding the amount of documents in question. Given your limited resources, I agree to narrow my request to the second category mentioned, those documents included as attached files in the e-mails.

Yours sincerely,

Alexander Fanta

CNECT-PUBLIC-ACCESS-TO-DOCUMENTS, Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs

1 Attachment

Link: [1]File-List
Link: [2]Edit-Time-Data
Link: [3]themeData
Link: [4]colorSchemeMapping

[5]Holding reply - Your application for access to documents RefGestDem
2022/1467 - Ares(2022)2525140  (Please use this link only if you are an
Ares user – Svp, utilisez ce lien exclusivement si vous êtes un(e)
utilisateur d’Ares)

Dear Mr Fanta,

 

We refer to your request for access to documents, registered under the
abovementioned 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 is 28 April 2022.

 

We apologise for this delay and for any inconvenience this may cause.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

DG CONNECT Access to Documents Team

 

 

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...

CNECT-PUBLIC-ACCESS-TO-DOCUMENTS, Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs

1 Attachment

Link: [1]File-List
Link: [2]Edit-Time-Data
Link: [3]themeData
Link: [4]colorSchemeMapping

[5]Holding reply - Your application for access to documents RefGestDem
2022/1467 - Ares(2022)3315702  (Please use this link only if you are an
Ares user – Svp, utilisez ce lien exclusivement si vous êtes un(e)
utilisateur d’Ares)

Dear Mr Fanta,

 

We refer to your request for access to documents, registered under the
abovementioned reference number.

 

Unfortunately, we were not able to send the reply to your application
within the given time limit, which expired on 28/4/2022.

 

You will receive the answer to your application as soon as possible.

 

We apologize for this delay and for any inconvenience this may cause.

 

Yours faithfully,

 

DG CONNECT Access to Documents Team

[6]cid:image001.png@01D7F59A.F8304280

European Commission

DG Connect – ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS

BU25 – Avenue de Beaulieu 25

B-1160 Brussels/Belgium

 

 

 

References

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2. file:///tmp/cid:editdata.mso
3. file:///tmp/~~themedata~~
4. file:///tmp/~~colorschememapping~~
5. https://webgate.ec.testa.eu/Ares/documen...

CNECT-PUBLIC-ACCESS-TO-DOCUMENTS@ec.europa.eu, Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs

13 Attachments

*** Advance copy by e-mail and registered mail with acknowledgement of
receipt ***

 

Dear Mr Fanta,

Please find attached document Ares(2022)3430653 regarding "GESTDEM
2022/1467 " sent by Mr Roberto Viola, General Director of DG CONNECT on
04/05/2022.     

 

Best regards,    

 

European Commission

DG CONNECT — ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS

Avenue de Beaulieu, 25

B-1160 Brussels/Belgium

Alexander Fanta

Dear European Commission,

I am filing the following confirmatory application with regards to my access to documents request 'Editorial charter and grant agreement for the European Newsroom'.

Following my application, I agreed to narrow the scope of my request. Initially, I asked for all documents relating to the European Newsroom, including communication such as e-mails, text messages, etc. with project partners and other stakeholders. As DG Connect's access to documents team pointed out in their reply, this amounts to about 300 documents, which they grouped in five categories. Prompted by DG Connect, I agreed to limit the scope of my request to the category of "documents included as attached files in the emails", a total of 55 documents. However, I was told that given the staff workload they could only deal with a maximum of 15 documents. It took 55 days to receive a substantive reply, in which only 12 documents were fully or partially released.

I find this quite unsatisfactory and would like to ask the Commission to re-consider my initial request to release all 300 documents. I understand that resources of Commission staff are limited, but I believe that in line with with Article 6(3) of Regulation 1049/2001 it is not unreasonable to ask for a widest-possible release of documents within an extended time frame. Regarding this, I would like to point the Commission to the European Ombudsman decision in case 1869/2013/AN, in which the Commission was asked to provide 300 documents by an applicant. It then offered as a solution to release the requested documents within 3-7 months of the initial request. I would like to ask the Commission to re-examine my initial request and provide me with a time frame for a batch-by-batch examination and possible release of all documents within the coming months.

Furthermore, I would also like to ask the Commission to re-examine the documents falling within the initial scope of my request, in particular the partially released document 12 and the documents 13, 14 and 15, to which access was denied citing the protection of commercial interested as per Article 4 or Regulation 1049/2001. I would like to point out that this is a relative exception meant to be weighed with a public interest test. Given the fact that the media organisations involved produce a sizeable amount of the EU news consumed across the European Union every day, it is of considerable public interest whether they receive public funding and how they plan to use it. The release of the document thus concerns critical questions such as control of EU public spending, press freedom and media pluralism.

I would further like to point out that I make this confirmatory application in my role as journalist, which the European Court of Human Rights has recognized to have a special "social watchdog" function. I ask you to take this into account when dealing with my request.

Yours faithfully,

Alexander Fanta

GROW-ACCES-DOCUMENTS@ec.europa.eu, Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your message. Please note that as DG CNECT handled your initial request and provided you with their reply, we transferred your mail to DG CNECT.

Kind regards,

DG GROW ATD Team

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SG ACCES DOCUMENTS, Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs

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Dear Sir,

 

Thank you for your email dated 9/05/2022 by which you request, pursuant to
Regulation No 1049/2001 regarding public access to European Parliament,
Council and Commission documents, a review of the position taken by DG
CNECT in reply to your initial application GESTDEM 2022/1467.

 

We hereby acknowledge receipt of your confirmatory application for access
to documents which was registered on 11/05/2022 ([5]Ares(2022)3590361).

 

Your application will be handled within 15 working days (03/06/2022). In
case this time limit needs to be extended, you will be informed in due
course.

 

Please be informed that the answer to your confirmatory application is a
formal Commission decision that will be notified to you by express
delivery. Thank you for providing your contact phone number, so that the
external delivery service can contact you in case of absence.

 

Please note that the Commission will not use your phone number for any
other purpose than for informing the delivery service, and that it will
delete it immediately thereafter.

 

Yours faithfully,

 

 

 

ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS TEAM (IC)

 

 

European Commission

Secretariat-General

SG.C1 (Transparency, Document Management and Access to Documents)

[email address]

 

 

 

 

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SG ACCES DOCUMENTS, Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs

1 Attachment

Link: [1]File-List
Link: [2]Edit-Time-Data
Link: [3]themeData
Link: [4]colorSchemeMapping

[5]Your confirmatory application for access to documents under Regulation
(EC) No 1049/2001 - GESTDEM 2022/1467 -1st holding letter -
Ares(2022)4140810  (Please use this link only if you are an Ares user –
Svp, utilisez ce lien exclusivement si vous êtes un(e) utilisateur d’Ares)

Dear Mr Fanta,

 

I refer to your email of 11 May 2022, registered on the same date, by
which you submit a confirmatory application in accordance with Article
7(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 regarding public access to European
Parliament, Council and Commission documents (hereafter ‘Regulation (EC)
No 1049/2001’).

 

I would like to inform you that your confirmatory application is currently
being handled. Unfortunately, due to ongoing consultations, we are not in
a position to reply to your confirmatory request within the prescribed
time limit which expired on 3 June 2022.

 

Consequently, we have to extend this period by another 15 working days in
accordance with Article 8(2) of Regulation(EC) No 1049/2001. The new
deadline expires on 27 June 2022.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

 

 

Mariusz Daca, Ph.D.
Deputy Head of Unit

European Commission

Secretariat General

Unit C.1 (Transparency, Document Management and Access to Documents)

 

 

References

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5. https://webgate.ec.testa.eu/Ares/documen...

SG ACCES DOCUMENTS, Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs

1 Attachment

Link: [1]File-List
Link: [2]Edit-Time-Data
Link: [3]themeData
Link: [4]colorSchemeMapping

Dear Mr Fanta,

 

I refer to your email of 11 May 2022 2022, registered on the same day, by
which you submit a confirmatory application in accordance with Article
7(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 regarding public access to European
Parliament, Council and Commission documents ("Regulation (EC) No
1049/2001"), registered under reference number above.

 

I also refer to our holding reply dated 3 June 2022, by which the time
limit for replying to your confirmatory request was extended by 15 working
days, pursuant to Article 8(2) of the Regulation. This extended time limit
expires on 27 June 2022.

 

Please note that the assessment of your confirmatory application has been
almost finalized. The draft confirmatory decision needs to be approved by
the hierarchy of the different Commission services involved and the Legal
Service of the Commission.

 

However, I can assure you that we are doing our utmost to provide you with
a final reply asap.

 

I regret this additional delay and sincerely apologise for any
inconvenience this may cause.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Mariusz Daca, Ph.D.
Deputy Head of Unit
[5]cid:image001.gif@01D13362.41D673C0

European Commission

Secretariat General

Unit C.1 (Transparency, Document Management and Access to Documents)

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

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Dear Mr Daca,

I am writing in relation to my request Editorial charter and grant agreement for the European Newsroom. You wrote me nearly six months ago that the response to my confirmatory application was nearly finalised, but I have never received it. Can you confirm whether you have sent it or not? In case you sent it, but it never reached me, please e-mail me at [email address].

Yours sincerely,

Alexander Fanta

Sg-Acc-Doc@ec.europa.eu, Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs

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

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