Letter from ECB president 2010

The request was successful.

Dear European Central Bank,

Under the right of access to documents in the EU treaties, as developed in Regulation 1049/2001 and ECB Decision 2004/3, I am requesting documents which contain the following information:

1) The letter sent from Jean Claude Trichet to the Irish Finance Minister/Ministry dated November 19, 2010.

In a previous appeal to the EU Ombudsman and to Mr Draghi, access to this document was refused. However new information has now come to light.

It was reported this week that ECB Governing Council Member Patrick Honohan has contributed to a book in which he outlines information related to the contents of the November 19 letter. In the book he says:

"The Troika staff told Brian in categorical terms that burning the bondholders would mean no programme and, accordingly, could not be countenanced," Dr Honohan writes. "For whatever reason, they waited until after this showdown to inform me of this decision, which had apparently been taken at a very high-level teleconference to which no Irish representative was invited." -

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/pol...

In light of the fact that an ECB council member has chosen to publicly express the views being argued by the Troika at that time, it now appears - given that the eurozone has not collapsed - that release of the letter is not in fact a threat to the stability of the eurozone. I can no longer see any reason why it should not be released immediately in the public interest.

Yours faithfully,

Gavin Sheridan

Secretariat Inbound e-mails,

Dear Mr Sheridan,
 
We hereby confirm receipt, on 7 October 2014, of your below request for
access to ECB documents.

Please note that access to ECB documents is governed by Decision
ECB/2004/3 (the unofficial consolidated version of this ECB Decision is
available on the ECB website
(<[1]http://www.ecb.europa.eu/ecb/legal/pdf/0...>).

Your request has been registered and a reply will be provided to you in
line with this Decision, i.e. by 3 November 2014.
Yours faithfully,
DG Secretariat
European Central Bank
Kaiserstrasse 29
60311 Frankfurt am Main

[2][email address]
 
 
 
 

show quoted sections

Schremser, Roman, European Central Bank

Dear Mr Sheridan,
As you will be aware, the ECB President mentioned in his communication to
the European Ombudsman in March this year that the Governing Council
made a commitment to re-evaluate the disclosure of the letter dated 19
November 2010 from Mr Trichet to Mr Lenihan at a “more advanced stage of
the post-programme surveillance”. The completion of the so-called
Comprehensive Assessment (CA) exercise by end-October would provide such
an opportunity to review the stance taken to date on the disclosure of
this letter in light of the outcome of the thorough review of the largest
banks’ balance sheets.
Against this backdrop and in view of the fact that the Governing Council
in all likelihood will re-evaluate the disclosure of the above-mentioned
letter in the course of November, I wanted to check with you whether it
would be acceptable for you that we keep your request on hold until
this reassessment has been concluded. Should it turn out, for whatever
reason, that such a re-evaluation could not be feasibly undertaken during
next month, I would, of course, inform you accordingly and we would
proceed with the formal assessment of your request in line with the ECB’s
Decision on public access to ECB documents.
Please let us know if the above is agreeable to you.
Many thanks & best regards,
Roman Schremser
Senior Adviser
DG Secretariat
For your background information related to the CA and in particular to the
related timeline, please refer to
[1]https://www.ecb.europa.eu/ssm/assessment... and Section
4 of the note on the CA published this July.
 
 
_____________________________________________
From: Secretariat Inbound e-mails
Sent: 07 October 2014 13:25
To: '[FOI #1496 email]'
Subject: RE: access to information request - Letter from ECB president
2010
 
 
Dear Mr Sheridan,
 
We hereby confirm receipt, on 7 October 2014, of your below request for
access to ECB documents.

Please note that access to ECB documents is governed by Decision
ECB/2004/3 (the unofficial consolidated version of this ECB Decision is
available on the ECB website
(<[2]http://www.ecb.europa.eu/ecb/legal/pdf/0...>).

Your request has been registered and a reply will be provided to you in
line with this Decision, i.e. by 3 November 2014.
Yours faithfully,
DG Secretariat
European Central Bank
Kaiserstrasse 29
60311 Frankfurt am Main

[3][email address]
 
 
 
 

show quoted sections

Dear Schremser, Roman,

I would be happy to wait until November 30.

Yours sincerely,

Gavin Sheirdan

Dear Schremser, Roman,

I am aware that you have given other commitments to an MEP to issue a response with in 10 days.

I would appreciate if you informed me immediately of any decision in relation to release of the communication in question.

Yours sincerely,

Gavin

Schremser, Roman, European Central Bank

Dear Mr Sheridan,

There are no other commitments. What I've written below remains valid.

It goes without saying that the ECB will inform you (as well as any other citizen who recently requested access to the letter) without delay about any decision regarding the disclosure of the letter.

Best regards,
Roman Schremser

show quoted sections

Schremser, Roman, European Central Bank

Dear Mr Sheridan,
 
I should like to inform you that the Governing Council of the European
Central Bank just decided to release a letter written by the former ECB
President, Mr Trichet, on behalf of the Governing Council to then Irish
Finance minister, Brian Lenihan, in November 2010.
 
The Governing Council also decided to disclose a further three letters
that were part of correspondence between the ECB and the Irish authorities
in the run-up to the official application of Ireland for support under an
EU/IMF adjustment programme.
 
The letter and related correspondence will be made available on the ECB
website shortly.
 
We thus consider your related request for public access to the
above-mentioned letter as closed.
 
Best regards,
Roman Schremser
 
 

show quoted sections