Precedents relating to the "2016 EU-Turkey Agreement" practice
Dear Legal Service,
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:
in March, the Union's institutional press informed the public that an "agreement" had been concluded between the Union and the Republic of Turkey (http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEM...). I therefore asked the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union and the European Commission (Migration and Home Affairs) to provide me with the text of the relevant "agreement".
I was eventually informed that no legally-binding agreement has ever been concluded between the Union and Turkey, and that the “agreement” referred to in the press is just a joint “political statement" made by the European Council and the representatives of the Foreign Ministry of Turkey.
The legal procedure for concluding international agreements with third States is to be found in Article 218 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. However, this legal procedure was not followed in this case, notwithstanding the fact that the actual "statement" does involve considerable budgetary implications for the Union (six billions) in favour of a non-EU member State, as well as the repatriation of hundreds of people towards third States to be implemented by a non-EU member State which is known for committing human rights violations.
I would like you to provide me with:
1) a list of all cases where specific actions to be implemented by a non-EU member State were supported through Union’s funds only on the basis of a joint “political statement” undertaken by the European Council, without any legally-binding agreement being in place;
2) the texts of all “political statements” indicated in the list above;
3) the legal and budgetary opinions and the relevant decisions of the EU institutions authorising the disbursement of the six billions in favour of Turkey under the March's joint "statement".
Thank you.
Yours faithfully,
Ilaria Tani
Dear Legal Service,
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of Legal Service's handling of my FOI request 'Precedents relating to the "2016 EU-Turkey Agreement" practice'.
By law, the Legal Service, to whom I had addressed my request, should normally have responded by now. I never even received any aknowledgement of receipt regarding my request by the Legal Service, and my request is still pending, unanswered. It seems, therefore, that my request has been ignored by the relevant authority. I am still very interested in the outcome of my FOI request and would like to receive a complete answer soon, taking into account the delay that has already occurred.
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/prec...
Yours faithfully,
Ilaria Tani
Dear Mrs Tani,
Indeed, on 23 May 2016 you have addressed to the Legal Service a request for access relating to "precedents to the "2016 EU-Turkey Agreeement" practice.
After assessment of your request, on 25 May 2016 it was transferred to the Secretariat General in order to be attributed to the Directorate-General responsible for the matter. The Secretariat General (in copy of this e-mail) will be able to inform you on the state of processing of your request.
Yours sincerely,
___________________________
European Commission
Legal Service
Information and documentation sector
[email address]
Dear Mrs Tani,
Thank you for your e-mail dated 23/05/2016 sent to the Legal service. We
hereby acknowledge receipt of your application for access to documents,
which was registered on 23/06/2016 under references numbers GESTDEM
2016/3492 and 2016/3493.
As the request concerns different services, it has been split into 2 parts :
2016/3492 DG NEAR will be in charge of the point 3 of the request
2016/3493 DG BUDG will be in charge of points 1 & 2 of the request
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
14/07/2016. 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@01D1AAC8.E6AD8E50
European Commission
Secretariat General
Unit B4 – Transparency
Dear Ms Tani,
Further to your request of access to documents, please find attached the
relevant documents and the following link:
http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/news_cor....
Thank you very much, kind regards,
NEAR ACCDOC
Dear Legal Service,
on 23 May 2016 I addressed a request of access to documents to your office.
In your reply, dated 23 June 2016, your office informed me that " As the request concerns different services, it has been split into 2 parts : 2016/3492 DG NEAR will be in charge of the point 3 of the request; 2016/3493 DG BUDG will be in charge of points 1 & 2 of the request".
So far, I received only a reply from DG NEAR on 12 July 2016.
Besides the unusual wait (in accordance with Regulation 1049/2001, my application should have been handled within 15 working days, i.e. handled by 6 June 2016), I have never received a reply by DG BUDG, in charge of points 1 & 2 of my request.
I am still interested in receiving the information and thank you very much for handling my longstanding request.
Yours faithfully,
Ilaria Tani
Dear all,
Please see below the request for access to documents submitted by Ms Tani concerning documents of DG BUDG.
Kind regards,
Maria SKYLODIMOU
European Commission
Legal Service
BERL 03/004
B-1049 Brussels/Belgium
+32 229 - 13639
[email address]
Dear Ms Tani,
Sincere apologies for the late reply (we actually thought you had received our contribution by another Commission service).
The actions supported by EU funds under the Facility for Refugees in Turkey (FRT) are, as is often the case, supported by a political consensus in the form of a joint political statement. However, these actions are always undertaken in line with existing policy and information documents placed in the public domain and in accordance with the rules of the EU budget and the concerned legal bases for delivering humanitarian and non-humanitarian assistance. You can find below an explanation of the legal bases for implementing the EUR 3 billion agreed with Turkey so far, conditional on the implementation by Turkey of its commitments under the EU-Turkey Joint Action Plan.
The FRT was set up by a Commission Decision of 24.11.2015 (C(2015) 9500 final), subsequently amended by Commission Decision of 10 February 2016 (2016/C 60/03). The FRT is a coordination mechanism established to assist Turkey in addressing the immediate humanitarian and development needs of the refugees and their host communities, national and local authorities in managing and addressing the consequences of the inflow of refugees.
The funds spent under this 'umbrella' are implemented according to the EU budget rules and the legal bases of the concerned EU financing instruments, notably Regulation (EU) No 231/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing an Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA II) and Council Regulation (EC) No 1257/96 concerning Humanitarian Aid.
The FRT coordinates an amount of EUR 3 billion, of which EUR 1 billion is provided by the EU budget and EUR 2 billion by bilateral contributions from Member States. Moreover, the EU-Turkey Statement of 18 March 2016 mentions in its point 6 that 'Once these resources are about to be used to the full, and provided the above commitments are met, the EU will mobilise additional funding for the Facility of an additional 3 billion euro up to the end of 2018.'
Yours sincerely,
BUDG Team