Ref. Ares(2020)2833330 - 02/06/2020
EUROPEAN COMMISSION
DIRECTORATE-GENERAL FOR MIGRATION AND HOME AFFAIRS
The Director-General
Brussels
HOME/MP
By registered letter with acknowledgment of
receipt
Peter Teunissen
Freie Universität Berlin
Faculty of Humanity and Philosophy
Office JK 29/205
Habelschwerdter Allee 45
14195 Berlin, Germany
Advance copy by email :
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxx.xxx
Subject:
Your application for access to documents – GESTDEM 2020/2621
Dear Mr Teunissen,
We refer to your email of 2 May 2020 in which you make a request for access to
documents, registered on 8 May 2020 under the above-mentioned reference number.
We regret to inform you that the Commission does not hold any documents that would
correspond to the description given in your application – “a list that mentions all the
research funded under the Horizon 2020 programme that deals with migration, refugees,
and borders (security)”.
Dynamic information on projects is contained in the Common Research Data Warehouse
(CORDA), an internal database maintained by DG RTD. I refer you to the publicly
available version of this database ‘Community Research and Development Information
Service’ (CORDIS)1, which is the European Commission’s primary source of results
from projects funded by the EU's framework programmes for research and innovation,
including Horizon 2020. The CORDIS database provides access to project information
held by the European Commission such as project factsheets, participants, reports,
deliverables and links to open-access publications.
In this context, I would like to point out that the question regarding the possible status of
information stored in databases as a document within the meaning of Regulation (EC) No
1049/2001 has already been subject to an assessment by the General Court, which in its
ruling in Case T-214/13 established that ‘in the event of an application for access
designed to have the Commission carry out a search of one or more of its databases using
1
https://cordis.europa.eu/en
Commission européenne/Europese Commissie, 1049 Bruxelles/Brussel, BELGIQUE/BELGIË - Tel. +32 22991111
search criteria specified by the applicant, the Commission is obliged, subject to the
possible application of Article 4 of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001, to accede to that
request, if the requisite search can be carried out using the search tools which it has
available for the database in question’2.
With this judgement, the General Court confirmed the previous judgment in the Dufour
case, where the Court stated that ‘anything that can be extracted from a database by
means of a normal or routine search may be the subject of an application for access’3.
Furthermore, I would like to bring to your attention the most recent judgement in Case C-
491/15P, where the Court of Justice took the position that the routine character of an
operation which determines whether information extracted from a database is a
document, is determined by whether the operation has been made available to final users
for general use 4.
Please note that Horizon 2020 projects generally touching upon topics of ‘migration,
refugees and borders (security)’ may relate to a wide range of calls under different
programme parts5 and addressing different focus areas.6 Therefore aggregating results to
create such a customised list requires non-routine searches using different filters and
further key words to narrow down further the search and match your area of interest.7
The data range concerned can therefore not be extracted from the relevant databases by
means of a routine search operation using the search tools available.
For these reasons, the information requested is not included in any existing document.
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 the possession of the
institution.
Given that no such documents, corresponding to the description given in your
application, are held by the Commission, the Commission is not in a position to fulfil
your request.
In accordance with Article 7(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001, you are entitled to
make a confirmatory application requesting the Commission to review this position.
2
Judgment of the General Court of 2 July 2015,
Typke v
European Commission, T-214/13, EU:T:2015:448,
paragraph 56 (hereafter referred to as the ‘
Typke v
European Commission judgment’.
3
Judgment of the General Court of 22 October 2011,
Dufour v
European Central Bank, T-436/09, EU:T:2011:634,
paragraph 153.
4
Judgment of the Court of Justice of 11 January 2017,
Typke v
European Commission , C-491/15P, EU:C:2017:5,
paragraph 36.
5
The Horizon 2020 Work Programme (WP) can be found on the
Funding and Tenders Portal under
‘Reference documents’.
6
Calls of particular interest could be encompassed in
inter alia chapter ‘14. Secure Societies –
protecting freedom and security of Europe and its citizens’ and chapter 13. ‘Europe in a changing
world – inclusive, innovative and reflective societies’ of the Horizon 2020 Work Programme.
A useful tool to search current and past calls under H2020 is the database on
the Funding and Tenders
Portal.
7
Useful filters to narrow down the search in CORDIS could be: selecting the Horizon 2020 funding
programme, selecting the domain of application (e.g. security and society), and using the search bar to
insert key words (e.g. ‘migration’, ‘refugees’, ‘borders’, ‘security’).
2
Such a confirmatory application should be addressed within 15 working days upon
receipt of this letter to the Secretariat-General of the Commission at the following
address:
European Commission
Secretariat-General
Transparency, Document Management & Access to Documents (SG.C.1)
BERL 7/076
B-1049 Brussels
or by email t
o: xxxxxxxxxx@xx.xxxxxx.xx Yours sincerely,
Monique PARIAT
[e-Signed]
3
Electronically signed on 29/05/2020 19:31 (UTC+02) in accordance with article 4.2 (Validity of electronic documents) of Commission Decision 2004/563