Dear Agriculture,

Under the right of access to documents in the EU treaties, as developed in Regulation 1049/2001, and Regulation 1367/2006, I am requesting the following information:

All documents from 15/03/2023 – including but not limited to (draft versions of) minutes, (hand-written) notes, audio recordings, verbatim reports, operational conclusions, briefings, e-mails, attachments, letters, text messages, phone call notes, (powerpoint) presentations – related to the decision of several Dutch regional water authorities (in Dutch: ‘waterschappen’) to let farmers use landscape features owned by the regional water authorities to apply for payments under the eco-scheme of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

Since the information might at least partly also concern "activities affecting or likely to affect" the "state of the elements of the environment", I believe Regulation 1367/2006 applies.

Should you encounter any difficulties in interpreting or processing my request, I am ready to discuss ways to clarify or amend it to keep the effort required on your part to the necessary minimum.

Please send me an acknowledgement of receipt for this request, as foreseen by Article 7 (1) of Regulation 1049/2001. I would appreciate it if you could send a list of documents that correspond to my request. Please note I prefer to receive the documents in digital format, not by physical mail. I also kindly request you make and digital files searchable using OCR.

Context: in March 2023 the Water board Scheldestromen announced that farmers could use ditches or streams owned by the waterboard [1]. In June 2023 Follow the Money reported on this issue [2][3].

Furthermore, a source informed me that after these two publications, the European Commission contacted the Dutch authorities in Brussels and The Hague and the water boards.

Yours faithfully,

Jan Daalder

Follow the Money
Overtoom 197-1
1054HT Amsterdam
The Netherlands

[1] https://www.zlto.nl/actueel/waterschap-s...)
[2] https://www.ftm.nl/artikelen/waterschapp...
[3] https://www.ftm.nl/artikelen/waterschapp...

Dear Agriculture and Rural Development,

I have not received a timely reply. Can you please respond to my request?

Yours faithfully,

Jan Daalder

Dear [email address],

Thank you, I had not received the reply, weirdly enough, so thank you for sending it again.

I am however requesting an internal review, as a source with knowledge of the matter, tells me there has in fact been contact between the Commission and Dutch authorities in Brussels and The Hague and the water boards (as I already wrote in my original request).

Yours sincerely,

Jan Daalder

Dear Agriculture and Rural Development,

Thank you for the Decision C(2024)6018 concerning my request 2024/3719. I hereby consider the case closed.

Yours faithfully,

Jan Daalder