EU-China Macroeconomic Dialogue

Economic and Financial Affairs has replied saying they have transferred your request to another public body.

Dear Economic and Financial Affairs,

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:

Details of the various EU-China Macroeconomic Dialogue meetings, taking place since 2006 - agendas, minutes, reports, etc.
Joint statements/communiques produced as a result of the EU-China Macroeconomic Dialogue meetings.
Transcripts of press conferences following EU-China Macroeconomic Dialogues.

I have ascertained that Macroeconomic Dialogues have taken place on the following dates:
7th December, 2006
29th November, 2009
However, if subsequent dialogues have taken place, I would like to access documents relating to these meetings as well.

Thank you in advance for your assistance with my request.

Yours faithfully,

Scott Brown

Sent request to Economic and Financial Affairs again.

Louise Crow left an annotation ()

AskTheEU had a brief technical problem on 9th April, meaning that this request did not get sent. I have now re-sent it. Sorry!

Scott Brown left an annotation ()

Hi Louise,

Thanks for updating me, appreciate it.

Economic and Financial Affairs

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Dear Mr. Brown,
 
Thank you for your request for access to documents.
 
Unfortunately you have not indicated your postal address that 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,
 
ECFIN ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS TEAM
 
European Commission
Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs
R.4: Evaluation, internal control, business continuity and document
management

 

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Dear ECFIN Access to Documents Team,

Thank you for your response. I was not previously aware of the requirement to provide a postal address and thus would like to enquire whether it is necessary for access to digital documents.

Given that I have made the request via asktheeu.org, I would rather not divulge my postal address in a public arena.

However, upon trying to use the registration website provided, I am unable to complete the request because the United Kingdom is not an option on the drop-down list. In fact, there are four EU Member States missing from that list. This creates an obstacle to EU citizens looking to exercise their right to lodge requests for access to documents under Regulation 1049/2001. I would respectfully ask you to look into this matter and have the website corrected to enable completion of the form. If it helps, I am using the Google Chrome browser (in case this is a browser-specific problem).

Further, the text box for entering "document requested" has a relatively low character limit, meaning that I cannot provide the full details of the documents I am requesting. Since I do not know the specific type, year, number or version of the documents, I need to provide details of the parameters of my request.

I would appreciate your advice in the meantime for how to proceed swiftly.

Yours sincerely,

Scott Brown

Yours faithfully,

Scott Brown

Economic and Financial Affairs

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Dear Mr Brown,
 
With respect to your questions regarding the provision of a postal address
(copied below), please find herewith our explanations.
 
On 1 April 2014, the postal address became a mandatory feature for the
purpose of introducing a request for access to documents.
 
The decision to ask for a postal address from applicants for access to
documents was triggered by the following considerations:
 
•       The need to obtain legal certainty as regards the date of receipt
of the reply by the applicant under Regulation 1049/2001. Indeed, as
foreseen by Article 297 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European
Union (TFEU), […] decisions which specify to whom they are addressed,
shall be notified to those to whom they are addressed and shall take
effect upon such notification. Replies triggering the possibility for
administrative or judicial redress are therefore transmitted via
registered mail with acknowledgement of receipt. This requires an
indication of a valid postal address by the applicant;
 
•       The need to direct the Commission's scarce resources first of all
to those requests which have been filed by "real" applicants. With only a
compulsory indication of an e-mail address, applicants can easily
introduce requests under an invented identity or under the identity of a
third person. Asking for a postal address helps the Commission to protect
the administration, as well as other citizens and legal persons, from
abuse;
 
•       For similar reasons, asking for a compulsory indication of a
postal address enables the Commission services to verify whether Article
6(3) of the Regulation, on voluminous requests, is being evaded by
introducing several requests under different identities. Indeed, in its
Ryanair judgment, the General Court confirmed that Article 6(3) cannot be
evaded by splitting the application into a number of applications. The
Commission would like to point out that, in 2012/2013, it received some 57
confirmatory requests from what it suspects to be one single applicant
operating under 13 different identities;
 
•       Knowing whether the applicant is an EU resident in the sense of
Article 2(1) of Regulation 1049/2001 is a precondition for the purpose of
correctly applying the exception in Article 4(1)(b) of Regulation
1049/2001 (protection of the privacy and integrity of the individual),
which has to be interpreted in accordance with Data Protection Regulation
45/2001. Article 9 of Regulation 45/2001 requires the adequacy of the
level of protection afforded by the third country or international
organisation when transmitting personal data to third-country residents or
legal persons. It follows that, in case of requests for documents which
include personal data, the correct application of the data protection
rules cannot be ensured in the absence of a postal address enabling the
Commission to ascertain that the minimum data protection standards will be
respected.
 
All of these considerations show that the request for and the consequent
processing of a postal address is not only appropriate but also strictly
necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest
within the meaning of Article 5 (a) of Data Protection Regulation 45/2001,
namely providing a smooth and effective access to documents.
 
We therefore kindly reiterate our request to you to provide a full postal
address, so we can duly register and handle your request. Please note
that, once we receive your postal address, we will register your request
for access as an initial application for access to documents in the
meaning of Article 6(1) of Regulation 1049/2001. The deadline for handling
your initial request shall run as from the moment of registration of your
request following the submission of your postal address.
 
We would like to thank you for bringing to our attention the problem with
the "drop-down list". We have immediately informed the competent service
in the Commission who will be addressing this issue as soon as possible.
 
Regarding the size of the text box and also to respond to your hesitation
to divulge your postal address in a public arena, we would suggest you
write to the European Commission from your own e-mail account using the
access to documents functional mailbox of DG ECFIN,
[1][DG ECFIN request email].
 
Thank you in advance.
 
Kind regards,
 
ECFIN ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS TEAM
 
European Commission
Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs
R.4: Evaluation, internal control, business continuity and document
management

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