Ref. Ares(2015)5392093 - 26/11/2015
EUROPEAN COMMISSION
DIRECTORATE-GENERAL FOR RESEARCH & INNOVATION
Directorate J - Common Support Centre
J.1 - Common Legal Support Service
The Head of Unit
Brussels,
To: Laura Motet
Grimmstrasse 10A
10967 Berlin, Germany
By registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt
Advance
copy
by
email:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxx.xxx
Dear Madam,
Subject: Your application for access to documents, reference GestDem
No 2015/5554
We refer to your e-mail dated 7 October 2015 in which you make a request for
access to documents, registered on 14 October 2015 under the above mentioned
reference number.
Please note that we have limited the scope of your request to grants funded under
the Horizon 2020 and FP7 programmes because they are within the remits of DG
RTD. We have noticed that you sent a similar request for information to other
services of the Commission and we hope that you have received a reply which
addresses all the other grants and studies which are mentioned in your list, but do
not relate to FP7 or Horizon 2020.
1.- We regret to inform you that after contacting the operational services in charge
of the payments for the projects concerned, no documents were found that would
correspond to the description given in your application.
This is explained by the fact that in on-going multi-beneficiary FP7 and Horizon
2020 grants the Commission makes payments only to the project co-ordinator who
afterwards distributes the payments to the beneficiaries within the consortium. The
Commission Européenne/Europese Commissie, 1049 Bruxelles/Brussel, BELGIQUE/BELGIË - Tel. +32 22991111
Office: ORBN 10/131 - Tel. direct line +32 229-61073
xxxxxxx.xxxxxx@xx.xxxxxx.xx
Commission does not have information on precise sums given by the project co-
ordinator to the beneficiaries. The Commission is aware about costs claimed by the
beneficiaries only after the end of the grants; even for these cases, the payments
linked to these costs are not refunded directly by the Commission to the
beneficiaries, but paid to the project co-ordinator, who later distributes them among
the other partners in the consortium according to their own agreements.
For on-going mono-beneficiary FP7 and Horizon 2020 grants, there is only one
beneficiary, and therefore the payment is direct, but the precise sums given by the
Commission to the beneficiary are known also only after the end of the project,
because it is the moment when the EU contribution per partner, based on costs
actually incurred and approved by the Commission, is known.
The only information that is available for on-going mono or multi-beneficiary FP7
and Horizon 2020 grants is the estimated EU contribution per beneficiaries.
However, this is only an estimation, the precise sums received in reality by the
beneficiaries can be different provided that they remain within the maximum EU
contribution for the grant. In principle, the estimated EU contribution per
beneficiaries in FP7 and Horizon 2020 is published on CORDIS (see for example
the project COMPARE http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/194068_en.html, you can
find the information under the name of each participants in the grant).
2.- Following this, and given that no such documents have been identified, the
Commission is not in a position to handle your request as a request for access to
documents under
Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001. As specified in Article 2(3) of
Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001, the right of access as defined in that
Regulation applies only to existing documents in possession of the institution.
3.- Although the Commission is not in a position to handle your request as a request
for access to documents under
Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001, we understand that
you would like to obtain as much information as possible on this issue. Therefore
we have decided to treat your request as a request for information under the
Code of
Good Administrative Behaviour. We are now compiling by ourselves the
information we have received from the research DGs and EAs and preparing a
harmonized reply on behalf of all the research family, containing information about
the estimated EU contribution to the selected UK universities. We expect to be able
to send you this information in the coming days.
If in addition you are interested to know about the EU contribution linked to the
costs claimed by the UK universities in closed grants (as mentioned above, these are
the only ones for which we could retrieve actual data), please be aware that this will
concern only a small number of the research projects mentioned in your list. If
nevertheless you are interested in this, please let us know it and we will try to
collect and provide you with this additional information.
If you are not satisfied with our reply to your access to documents request, you are
entitled, in conformity with Article 7(2) of
Regulation 1049/2001, to make a
confirmatory application requesting the Commission to review this position
concerning access to documents.
2
Such a confirmatory application should be addressed within 15 working days upon
receipt of this letter to the Secretary-General of the Commission at the following
address:
European Commission
Secretary-General
Transparency unit SG-B-4
BERL 5/327
B-1049 Bruxelles
or by em
ail to: xxxxxxxxxx@xx.xxxxxx.xx
Yours faithfully,
[
e-Signed]
Liliane De Wolf
3
Electronically signed on 26/11/2015 17:59 (UTC+01) in accordance with article 4.2 (Validity of electronic documents) of Commission Decision 2004/563