Money given from the EU to the Council of Europe (including the ECHR)

Response to this request is long overdue. By law, under all circumstances, Secretariat General of the European Commission should have responded by now (details). You can complain by requesting an internal review.

Dear Secretariat General,

I am very worried that the EU Commission is in the position to give (hidden) directions to the Council of Europe and especially to the European Courts of Human rights (ECHR). The rejection of applications to the ECHR is very intransparent and people don't get their application back.

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:

(1) All information/spendings on EU money given to the Council of Europe. This detailed on the individual payments since 2009.

(2) Further I would like to know if there are EU sponsored Trainings on Human Rights Subjects (the European Convention of Human rights) from the EU.

(3) all Information on negotiations between the European Union and the Council of Europe. Information about the European Union wanting to become a member of the CoE.

(4) Exchange of people and communication between the Employees of EU and CoE (EU Commission members, Members of Parliament, Judges etc). Please list the names. All meeting documents and conference documents/recordings. EU citizens should not worry about revolving doors, lobbyists etc.

Yours faithfully,

Klaus Zinser

Secretariat General of the European Commission

1 Attachment

Dear Mr  Zinser,

 

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/...

 

Best regards,

 

ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS TEAM
[2]cid:image001.gif@01D18A86.5C3DA690
European Commission
Secretariat General

Unit B4 - Transparency

 

 

 

show quoted sections

Dear Secretariat General,

Hauptstrasse 8
88427 Bad Schussenried
Germany

Regards,
K.Zinser

Dear Secretariat General,

Hauptstrasse 8
88427 Bad Schussenried
Deutschland

Have you prepared the answer in the meantime ?

Yours faithfully,

Klaus Zinser

Secretariat General of the European Commission

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Zinser,

 

Thank you for your e-mail dated 27/04/2016.  We hereby acknowledge receipt
of your application for access to documents, which was registered on
27/04/2016 under reference number GestDem  2016/2242

 

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
24/05/2016. 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 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.

 

Yours faithfully,

 

ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS TEAM
[1]cid:image001.gif@01D191AE.44A276D0
European Commission
Secretariat General

Unit B4 - Transparency

 

 

show quoted sections

Dear Secretariat General,

this FOI has been made on 5 April 2015. Therefore I should have received the answer already. Saying that I will get the answer on 24th May 2016 is misleading.

Please confirm that I am correct and answer now.

Yours faithfully,

Klaus Zinser

Secretariat General of the European Commission

4 Attachments

  • Attachment

    image001.gif

    3K Download

  • Attachment

    RE Freedom of Information request Money given from the EU to the Council of Europe including the ECHR.html

    8K Download

  • Attachment

    RE Freedom of Information request Money given from the EU to the Council of Europe including the ECHR GESTDEM 2016 2242.html

    9K Download

  • Attachment

    RE Freedom of Information request Money given from the EU to the Council of Europe including the ECHR.txt

    1K Download View as HTML

Dear M. Zinser

 

You sent, a request via Ask the EU on 05/04/2016
([1][FOI #2754 email])

We asked you for a postal address on 05/04/2016 (see message).

You replied to us on 27/04 (see message) and we immediately sent you an
acknowledgement of receipt, and registered your application in our GESTDEM
database 2016/2242 (see message).

We therefore cannot agree with your statement that our communications with
you has been misleading

Your request has been attributed to DG BUDG and  will be handled within 15
working days.

The time limit will expire on  24/05/2016.

 

Best regards

 

ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS TEAM
European Commission
Secretariat General

Unit B4 - Transparency

 

 

show quoted sections

Dear Secretariat General,

thats incorrect. On 6th April 2016 I have given you the address. As there was no reply I have given the address a 2nd time on 27th April. But you had received it already in 6th April. Therefore you should have answered already.

http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/money...

Yours faithfully,

Klaus Zinser

Secretariat General of the European Commission

1 Attachment

Dear M. Zinser,

 

Our sincere apologies for this mistake. Your message of 6 April was
mistakenly archived due to a clerical error, and that is the reason why we
only attributed the request on 27 April.
Please be assured that your request will be treated in the shortest
possible delays

 

Yours faithfully,

 

 

ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS TEAM
European Commission
Secretariat General

Unit B4 - Transparency

 

 

 

show quoted sections

Dear Secretariat General,

whats the status now? On 6 April 2016 you had the request and my postal address.

Yours faithfully,

Klaus Zinser

Secretariat General of the European Commission

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Zinser,

 

Thank you for your email dated 10/05/2016.

As we explained in our e-mail of 28/04/2016  your request was mistakenly
archived due to a clerical error, and we apologise for that.

The respective parts have been attributed to different services as
follows:

 

2016/2242 => DG BUDG

2016/2652 => DG JUST

2016/2653 => DG HR

2016/2673  =>DG SJ

 

Your request is rather complex due to the fact that different services of
the European Commission are involved.        

Please be assured that the different services concerned will do their
utmost to provide you with a reply as soon as possible.

We are sorry for the inconvenience and thank you very much for your
patience.

As far as point 4 is concerned, could you please specify a period in order
to facilitate our search

Thank you in advance.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

 

ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS TEAM
European Commission
Secretariat General

Unit B4 - Transparency

 

 

 

show quoted sections

Secretariat General of the European Commission

1 Attachment

Dear Sir,

We refer to your e-mail dated 05 April 2016 in which you make a request
for access to documents, registered on 27 April 2016 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 24/05/2016

An extended time limit is needed as your application needs to be further
analysed.

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 14/06/2016.

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

Yours faithfully,

 

 

R. Carlini

Head of Unit
 
European Commission
Directorate-General for Human Resources and Security
Unit B1 – Selection, Recruitment and End of Service

MO34 06/56
B-1049 Brussels/Belgium

 

Secretariat General of the European Commission

Dear Mr Zinser,

We refer to your e-mail dated 5 April 2016 in which you make a request for
access to documents, registered on 27 April 2016 under the reference
number GestDem No 2016/2652

You asked for "all the communications between the Employees of the EU and
the CoE (EU Commission members, Members of Parliament, Judges, etc).
Please list the names. All meetings and conference documents/recordings."

The description given in your application is too large to enable us to
identify concrete documents which would correspond to your request.

We therefore invite you, pursuant to Article 6(2) of Regulation (EC) No
1049/2001 regarding public access to documents, to provide us with more
detailed information on the documents which you seek to obtain, such as
dates or periods during which the documents would have been produced or
the subject matter of those documents.

Furthermore, we would like to let you know that the Commission's services
cannot deal with requests concerning the European Parliament and the
European Court of Justice.

The 15 working days of the time limit for handling your application will
start running when we receive the requested clarifications.

Thank you in advance for your understanding.

Yours faithfully,

JUST ACESS TO DOCUMENTS TEAM

 

Dear Secretariat General,

now i am extremely surprised. You have received this request on 5 April 2016. Now its 24 May 2016. You had nearly had twice the time given to answer the request. And still you have not delivered.

Currently I cannot figure out what documents are around and available. Some people could interpret your reaction as a systematic method for further delay.

Therefore I request - and thats an accounting issues that can be answered immediately - that you immediately provide all payments that have been done. Please reply immediately if you are willing and if this data will be provided until 26 May 2016.

When the numbers are published this request will be more detailed with further questions.

Yours faithfully,

Klaus Zinser

EC ARES NOREPLY, Secretariat General of the European Commission

1 Attachment

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

[5]Ares(2016)2403874 - Your request "Money given from the EU to the
Council of Europe (including the ECHR" (GestDem 2016/2673)

Sent by ARNOLD-WOERTZ Brigitte (SJ) <[email address]>.
All responses have to be sent to this email address.
Envoyé par ARNOLD-WOERTZ Brigitte (SJ)
<[email address]> . Toutes les réponses doivent être
effectuées à cette adresse électronique.

Dear Mr. Zinser,

 

As you were informed your "Freedom of Information request - Money given
from the EU to the Council of Europe (including the ECHR)" which you filed
last month has also been assigned to the Legal service.

As you know, the Legal Service responsible to provide legal advice to the
Commission and its services and to represent the Commission in all court
cases does not deal with money.

Therefore we understand your question as an access to document request to
the opinion the Commission asked to the ECJ.

 

I am pleased to inform you that this document has already been released
and published on our EUROPA website.

[6]http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/legal_service/su...

 

Please note that you may reuse the document, as you find it published,
free of charge for non-commercial and commercial purposes provided that
the source is acknowledged, that you do not distort the original meaning
or message of the document.
Please note that the Commission does not assume liability stemming from
the reuse.

 

Kind regards

BRIGITTE ARNOLD-WOERTZ
Head of Sector InfoDoc
 
European Commission
Legal Service
Information and Documentation (InfoDoc) 
BERL 1/90
B-1049 Brussels/Belgium
+32 2 295 08 47
[7][email address]
Legal service website on Europa
[8]http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/legal_service/in...

 

References

Visible links
1. file:///tmp/cid:filelist.xml@01D1B5D5.E36D07D0
2. file:///tmp/cid:editdata.mso
3. file:///tmp/~~themedata~~
4. file:///tmp/~~colorschememapping~~
5. http://www.cc.cec/Ares/ext/documentInfoD...
6. http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/legal_service/su...
7. mailto:[email address]
8. http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/legal_service/in...

Secretariat General of the European Commission

Dear Mr Zinser

DG JUST was asked to deal with the part of your request concerning "all the communications between the Employees of the EU and the CoE (EU Commission members, Members of Parliament, Judges, etc). Please list the names. All meetings and conference documents/recordings."

This request was registered under GestDem No 2016/2652.

Due to the fact that the description given in your application is too large to enable us to identify concrete documents which would correspond to your request we invited you, on 24 May 2016 and pursuant to Article 6(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 regarding public access to documents, to provide us with more detailed information on the documents which you seek to obtain, such as dates or periods during which the documents would have been produced or the subject matter of those documents.

We furthermore informed you that the Commission's services cannot deal with requests concerning the European Parliament and the European Court of Justice.

You replied on 24 May 2016.

It seems that your reply does not concern the request made by DG JUST.

You said "I request - and that's an accounting issues that can be answered immediately - that you immediately provide all payments that have been done."

What payments are you talking about?

The 15 working days of the time limit for handling your application will start running when we receive the requested clarifications.

Thank you in advance for your understanding.

Yours faithfully,

JUST ACESS TO DOCUMENTS TEAM

show quoted sections

Secretariat General of the European Commission

Dear Mr Zinser,

 

We refer to your e-mail of 5 April registered in ARES under the number
Ares(2016)2493826 in which you requested the following information: "I
would like to know if there are EU sponsored Training on Human Rights
Subjects (The European Convention of Human Rights) from the EU".

 

DG JUSTICE doesn't fund any training concerning explicitly the European
Convention of Human Rights which is an instrument from the Council of
Europe.

DG JUSTICE funds training on the Charter of Human Rights of the European
Union provided by ERA and targeting Lawyers in private practice and other
legal professionals and Members of the judiciary as you can see here:
[1]http://www.era-comm.eu/charter_of_fundam...

It is possible that the European Convention of Human Right is mentioned
during such trainings due to the similarity of the subject as you can see
in the following project: [2]http://helpcoe.org/content/help-28.

 

Best regards,

DG JUST Communications Team

 

References

Visible links
1. http://www.era-comm.eu/charter_of_fundam...
2. http://helpcoe.org/content/help-28

Dear Secretariat General, dear All,

based on the original questions from 5th April 2016:
-----
(1) All information/spendings on EU money given to the Council of Europe. This detailed on the individual payments since 2009.
(2) Further I would like to know if there are EU sponsored Trainings on Human Rights Subjects (the European Convention of Human rights) from the EU.
(3) all Information on negotiations between the European Union and the Council of Europe. Information about the European Union wanting to become a member of the CoE.
(4) Exchange of people and communication between the Employees of EU and CoE (EU Commission members, Members of Parliament, Judges etc). Please list the names. All meeting documents and conference documents/recordings. EU citizens should not worry about revolving doors, lobbyists etc.
-----
I have received on 24 May 2016 a document through a web link form Mrs Arnold Woertz which gives an opinion of the Legal Service commission (most capable as they deal with the CJEU Court Cases).
"Is the draft agreement providing for the accession of the European Union to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms compatible with the Treaties?"

Further documents 2016/2242 => DG BUDG; 2016/2652 => DG JUST; 2016/2653 => DG HR; (2016/2673 =>DG SJ) should follow.

Today on 31 May 2016 it was stated: "DG JUSTICE doesn't fund any training concerning explicitly the EuropeanConvention of Human Rights which is an instrument from the Council of Europe." So it seems for Question #2 there is a 'no'. But he there are trainings only for lawyers (and not for citizens or Students like Max Schrems who challenged the EU #SafeHarbor or parents who suffer from denied parental contact).
http://www.era-comm.eu/charter_of_fundam...
"The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union in Practice
Key topics: Legal value of the Charter; The relevance of the Charter for the national legal order; Content and scope of the Charter; Hints on application and interpretation of the Charter; Relationship with the European Convention of Human Rights and other human rights provisions; Interactive methodology
Case studies on the scope of application of the Charter; Group discussions
Workshop on substantive application of Charter provisions; Target group
Lawyers in private practice and other legal professionals; Members of the judiciary"

I had written my worry and why this request was put. "I am very worried that the EU Commission is in the position to give (hidden) directions to the Council of Europe and especially to the European Courts of Human rights (ECHR). The rejection of applications to the ECHR is very intransparent and people don't get their application back."

Re your comments: " We furthermore informed you that the Commission's services cannot deal with requests concerning the European Parliament and the European Court of Justice." -> I agree.

You said "I request - and that's an accounting issues that can be answered immediately - that you immediately provide all payments that have been done."
Your Question: What payments are you talking about?
In the Financial Transparency system
http://ec.europa.eu/budget/fts/index_en.... for 'CONSEIL DE L' EUROPE*COUNCIL OF EUROPE'
its reported:
2014 4,511,105 € - 8 Positions,
2013 4,718,760 € - 9 Positions,
2012 2,517,500 € - 6 Positions
2011 2,671,772 € - 7 Postions
2010 13,237,690 € - 15 Positions
2009 17,355,164 € - 22 Positions (e.g. Support for Access to Justice in Armenia 3,961,502 €)
2008 16,775,659 € - 30 Positions (e.g. Ukraine, .. judicial system (JS) is transformed 5,400,000€)
2007 4,173,527 € - 12 Positions

So we have nearly 70 Mio Euro that have been given from the EU Taxpayers to the Council of Europe. For this big amount of money where are the contracts? Who is accountable?

And very worrying, the EU Commission gives nearly 4 Mio Euro for Access to Justice in Armenia but systematically denies violations of European Union law when it comes to Paternal Contact, enforcement of EU court orders through UK, UK violating EU law: https://archive.org/details/20141111Brus... & https://archive.org/details/20151203Euro...
Very worrying, a Judge from Armenia rejects EU law cases at the Strasbourg courts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Armen... whilst the EU commission rejected infringement proceedings against UK and told the petitioner to go to Strasbourg court)

To go ahead with the FOI request, you want me to give more details on areas of existing documents.

-> For now I want to see the documents on these agreements which lead to 70 Mio Euro been given to the Council of Europe. This is question #1.

(As a side note, for the ECHR it is very strange that only 2-4% of the cases are accepted and 98 60 96% are struck out. http://echr.coe.int/Documents/Stats_anal...
For UK there are more details: http://rightsinfo.org/4-charts-which-sho... )

Yours faithfully,

Klaus Zinser

Dear Secretariat General,

any news on this ?

Kindly confirm tazt you have got this question and when you will answer.

Yours faithfully,

Klaus Zinser

Secretariat General of the European Commission

3 Attachments

 
Dear M. Zinser,
 
Please find attached the letter we sent on 08.06.2016 by registered mail
and returned to us today.
 
Regards,
 
 
In absence of R. Carlini
Head of Unit DG HR B1
Permanence Secrétariat
European Commission
DG HR - Unit B1
B-1049 Brussels/Belgium
 
 
 
 
 
 

Secretariat General of the European Commission

3 Attachments

 
 
Dear M. Zinser,
 
Please find attached the letter we sent on 08.06.2016 by registered mail
and returned to us today.
 
Regards,
 
 
In absence of R. Carlini
Head of Unit DG HR B1
Permanence Secrétariat
European Commission
DG HR - Unit B1
B-1049 Brussels/Belgium