Access to documents requests in 2011 and 2012
Dear Sir/Madam,
In line with the right of access to EU documents as developed in Regulation 1049/2001, we (Transparency International EU Office & Access Info Europe) are hereby writing to request access to all documents/records providing a detailed list of all the access to documents requests received by your institution in the calendar years 2011 and 2012, which should indicate in particular:
a) The subject of the request made (i.e. the specific document(s)/record(s) requested);
b) The (type of) requestor;
c) The DG/service concerned;
d) How the request was submitted/received (online form, direct email, via www.AsktheEU.org, phone, mail or other);
e) The initial decision on the request, including the basis upon which any refusals to grant access were made (prior to any confirmatory applications);
f) Whether the institution consulted with third parties (including other institutions and outside parties) prior to responding to the request;
g) Whether or not the initial refusal or partial refusal resulted in a confirmatory application;
h) Whether the confirmatory application was successful or partially successful (ie. it resulted in a partial revision of the initial response), or whether the confirmatory application resulted in a confirmation of the initial denial;
i) Whether or not partial access was granted to the documents;
j) Whether or not access to the entirety of the document requested was denied;
k) The time taken to deal with each request (i.e. including confirmatory applications, where applicable);
l) The number of times the deadline was extended, the amount of time it was extended for, and the reasons for the extension;
m) Whether the requester was asked to clarify or narrow their request, or to provide more information about themselves or about the reasons for their request.
Should an overview record listing the above-mentioned information for each individual request not be held by your institution, we would like to request the individual files related to all access to documents requests received in the calendar years 2011 and 2012 (i.e. the administrative correspondence providing insights to (a)-(k) above).
May I kindly request that the documents be provided in electronic format; where database records are provided, please provide these in an open, accessible format.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Yours sincerely,
Access Info Europe and Transparency International EU
Dear Secretariat General (SG),
Further to the access to documents request submitted today (11 July 2013), please note that the final line of the penultimate paragraph should read 'i.e. the administrative correspondence providing insights to (a)-(m) above'.
Thank you for your understanding.
Yours faithfully,
Access Info Europe and Transparency International EU
To the attention of Access Info Europe and Transparency international
Dear Mrs Darbishire,
I refer to the application for access to documents and information related
to "Access to documents requests 2011 and 2012", which Access Info Europe
and Transparency international filed in on 11 July 2013 via the "Ask the
EU" web facility.
Your application was registered under the reference Gestdem 2013/3752.
Since your request concerns a wide range of data ( The two years scope of
your request represents about 12000 individual files and records)
contained or archived in the electronic database "GESTDEM" of the
Commission, and that the public release of extracts from this database,
even under existing processes, requires a prior analysis and check of the
conformity of the parts of its information content which can be made
public with the requirements of the regulation in particular regarding the
possible personal data dimension, it will not be possible for us to take a
decision regarding your application within the time limit set out in
Article 7(1) of Regulation 1049/2001, even if, pursuant to Article 7(3)
of this Regulation, it is extended with 15 working days.
I would therefore like to inform you of the actual content and actual
possibilities offered by our existing database within the specific context
of regulation 1049/2001. This would help us to research with you and
propose a fair solution in the meaning of Article 6(3) of the Regulation,
which provides that “[in] the event of an application relating to a very
long document or to a very large number of documents, the institution
concerned may confer with the applicant informally, with a view to finding
a fair solution”.
I understand that you are yourself wishing such a meeting, so I expect
this approach will be acceptable to you. I suggest that we hold such a
meeting as soon as we can find a convenient time slot. I would thus be
grateful if you could call the Commission transparency unit (+32 2 299 94
06) or send a message to : [1][SG request email].
My colleagues from the European Parliament and from the Council have noted
with me that you have tabled the same requests to each of our
Institutions. Having conferred about this together, we felt useful to draw
your attention on the fact that our Institutions are not using the same
instruments to monitor, treat, record and trace regulation 1049 requests
and decisions. This means that, without prejudice of our efforts to confer
and share good practices about the best application of the regulation
itself, the actual and concrete possibilities of our institutions to
provide you, under the terms of the regulation, with similar documents and
information may well be different from one institution to another. It may
also happen that part of the detailed data (time spent on files for
example) which you seek to obtain may not be recorded, or encoded, in its
database by each institutions. I am informing my colleague about our
meeting so that they may join us if they wish.
I thank you for your understanding.
Yours sincerely,
__________________________________
European Commission - Secretariat General
Unit SG.B.5, Transparency
References
Visible links
1. mailto:[SG request email]
Dear Mrs Darbishire,
Please find herewith our answer to your request for access to documents
GESTDEM 2013/3752.
Enclosures :
Yours faithfully,
BLURIOT-PUEBLA Madeleine
Cellule 'Accès aux documents'
European Commission
SG/B/5 - Transparence
BERL 05/330
B-1049 Brussels/Belgium
+32 2 296 09 97
[1][email address]
References
Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
Dear Secretariat General (SG),
Thank you for your cooperation during the handling of this request and for providing the attached information.
Yours faithfully,
Access Info Europe and Transparency International EU