Gas market reform - Energy
From: Belen Balanya, Corporate Europe Observatory
Rue d’Edimbourg 26, 1050 Brussels.
28 June 2019 RE: Access to Documents related to gas market reform
Dear sirs,
Referring to Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 on public access to EU documents and to the 'Aarhus Regulation' (see note), I would herewith like to ask for access to the following:
1- all correspondence (including email) between 1st January 2018 and 28 June 2019 between the Commissioner for Energy and/or his cabinet and/or officials and representatives of DG Energy on one hand and representatives from Eurogas, GasNaturally, the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (IOGP), Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE), Marcogaz, IFIEC Europe, ENTSOG, ENTSOE, Eurelectric, Business Europe, CEFIC, Hydrogen Europe, Gas for Climate, Bioenergy Europe, European Biogas Association, National Grid, Open Grid Europe, Enagas, Gasunie, GRTgaz/GRDF/Engie, Terega, Statoil/Equinor, ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Enagas, Snam, Fluxys, Gazprom, Weber Shandwick, Gplus, Fleishman-Hillard and/or FTI Consulting on the other, in which the gas market reform was addressed.
2 - list of meetings between 1st January 2018 and 28 June 2019 between officials and representatives of DG Energy on one hand and representatives from Eurogas, GasNaturally, the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (IOGP), Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE), Marcogaz, IFIEC Europe, ENTSOG, ENTSOE, Eurelectric, Business Europe, CEFIC, Hydrogen Europe, Gas for Climate, Bioenergy Europe, European Biogas Association, National Grid, Open Grid Europe, Enagas, Gasunie, GRTgaz/GRDF/Engie, Terega, Statoil/Equinor, ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Enagas, Snam, Fluxys, Gazprom, Weber Shandwick, Gplus, Fleishman-Hillard and/or FTI Consulting on the other, in which the gas market reform was addressed.
3 - minutes of the meetings mentioned above
I would like to make clear I prefer you produce the documents on a rolling basis.
At no point should the Commission’s search for—or deliberations concerning—certain documents delay the production of others that the Commission has already retrieved and elected to produce.
To the extent possible, we prefer the documents in electronic format. Documents that cannot be sent in electronic format should be sent to Corporate Europe Observatory, Rue d’Edimbourg 26, 1050 Brussels.
Should my request be denied wholly or partially, please explain the denial or all deletions referring to specific exemptions in the regulation. Also I expect the partial release of documents, in case of partial exemption according to article 4.6.
I reserve the right to appeal.
Please confirm having received this application. I look forward to your reply within 15 business days, according to the regulation.
Thank you for your assistance.
Belen Balanya
Corporate Europe Observatory
Note: See Regulation (EC) n. 1367/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 September 2006 on the application of the provisions of the Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters to Community Institutions and bodies (hereinafter "Aarhus Regulation")
Your message has been received by the Transparency Unit of the
Secretariat-General of the European Commission.
Requests for public access to documents are treated on the basis of
[1]Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 of 30 May 2001 regarding public access to
European Parliament, Council and Commission documents.
The Secretariat-General will reply to your request within 15 working days
upon registration of your request and will duly inform you of the
registration of the request (or of any additional information to be
provided in view of its registration and/or treatment).
L’unité «Transparence» du secrétariat général de la Commission européenne
a bien reçu votre message.
Les demandes d’accès du public aux documents sont traitées sur la base du
[2]règlement (CE) n° 1049/2001 du 30 mai 2001 relatif à l’accès du public
aux documents du Parlement européen, du Conseil et de la Commission.
Le secrétariat général répondra à votre demande dans un délai de 15 jours
ouvrables à compter de la date d’enregistrement de votre demande, et vous
informera de cet enregistrement (ou vous indiquera toute information
supplémentaire à fournir en vue de l'enregistrement et/ou du traitement de
votre demande).
Ihre Nachricht ist beim Referat „Transparenz“ des Generalsekretariats der
Europäischen Kommission eingegangen.
Anträge auf Zugang zu Dokumenten werden auf der Grundlage der
[3]Verordnung (EG) Nr. 1049/2001 vom 30. Mai 2001 über den Zugang der
Öffentlichkeit zu Dokumenten des Europäischen Parlaments, des Rates und
der Kommission behandelt.
Das Generalsekretariat beantwortet Ihre Anfrage innerhalb von
15 Arbeitstagen nach deren Registrierung und wird Sie über die
Registrierung Ihres Antrags (oder die Notwendigkeit weiterer Informationen
im Hinblick auf dessen Registrierung und/oder Bearbeitung) unterrichten.
References
Visible links
1. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/...
2. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/...
3. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/...
[1]Ares(2019)4143236 - RE: access to documents request - Gas market reform
- Energy ---- Ref. Gestdem 2019/3744
Sent by ve_sg.accessdoc (SG) <[DG ENER request email]>. All responses have
to be sent to this email address.
Envoyé par ve_sg.accessdoc (SG) <[DG ENER request email]>. Toutes les
réponses doivent être effectuées à cette adresse électronique.
Dear Madam,
Thank you for your e-mail dated 28/06/2019. We hereby acknowledge receipt
of your application for access to documents, which was registered on
01/07/2019 under reference number GestDem 2019/3744.
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 22/07/2019. 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 third-party 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.
Please note that the private third party running the AsktheEU.org website
is responsible and accountable for the processing of your personal data
via that website, and not the European Commission. For further information
on your rights, please refer to the third party’s privacy policy.
We understand that the third party running that website usually publishes
the content of applicants’ correspondence with the European Commission on
that website. This includes the personal data that you may have
communicated to the European Commission (e.g. your private postal
address).
Similarly, the third party publishes on that website any reply that the
Commission will send to the email address of the applicants generated by
the AsktheEU.org website.
If you do not wish your correspondence with the European Commission to be
published on the AsktheEU.org website, you can provide us with an
alternative, private e-mail address for further correspondence.
In that case, the European Commission will send all future electronic
correspondence addressed to you only to that private address.
Yours faithfully,
Access to documents team (RC)
SG.C.1
Transparency
Dear Ms Balanya,
We refer to your email dated 28 June 2019 in which you make a request for
access to documents, registered on under the above-mentioned reference
number.
Your application concerns a very long list of organisations and a very
large number of documents, which might be even up to 150 and which need to
be assessed individually. Such a detailed analysis cannot be carried out
within the normal time limits set out in Article 7 of Regulation
1049/2001. Moreover, the analysis of these documents will also require the
consultation of the third parties concerned in accordance with Article
4(4) and 4(5) of Regulation 1049/2001, and it cannot be expected to be
completed within the normal time limits set out in Article 7 of Regulation
1049/2001.
However, the Regulation also provides for a possibility to confer with
applicants in order to find a fair solution when an application relates to
a very long document or concerns a very large number of documents. Article
6(3) provides that in the event of an application relating to a very long
document or to very large number of documents, the institution concerned
may confer with the applicant informally, with a view to finding a fair
solution.
In accordance with the case law of the EU Courts, such a solution can only
concern the content or the number of documents applied for, not the
deadline for replying.[1][1] This means that the scope of the request must
be reduced in a way that would enable its treatment within the extended
deadline of 15 + 15 working days.
Based on the above-mentioned provision, we would kindly ask you to choose
2 organisations from your list where we will be able to assess the
documents and consult the third parties.
Please be informed that for the following organisations / companies we
were not able to identify any documents during the requested period of
time:
- Marcogaz
- Business Europe
- Gas for Climate
- Open Grid Europe
- Enagas
- Gasunie
- Snam
- Fluxys
- Weber Shandwick
- Gplus
- Fleishman-Hillard
In order to enable us to respect the time-limits of Regulation 1049/2001,
we would ask you for a swift reply to our invitation to propose a fair
solution, within five working days at the latest:
· by email to: [2][email address]
If you have any questions concerning the invitation, you can contact us:
· by email at: [3][email address]
In the absence of a reply within five working days, we will unilaterally
restrict the scope of your application to 2 organisations with a total of
approximatively 10 documents concerned, that we can deal with within the
extended deadline of 30 working days, counting from the registration of
your application .
Thank you in advance for your understanding.
Best regards,
[4]cid:image001.png@01D03ECB.9741CEE0
European Commission
DG Energy
DG ENERGY – Access to documents team
Email: [5][email address]
------------------------
[6][1] Judgment of the Court of Justice of 2 October 2014 in case
C-127/13, Guido Strack v Commission, paragraphs 26-28.
References
Visible links
1. file:///tmp/foiextract20190712-32020-141ak6i#_ftn1
2. mailto:[email address]
3. mailto:[email address]
5. mailto:[email address]
6. file:///tmp/foiextract20190712-32020-141ak6i#_ftnref1
Dear sirs,
Thank you for your message. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that your proposal for a fair solution would seriously hamper my research objectives, as it would imply a too drastic reduction of the documents I initially requested.
Instead, I would like to propose the following arrangement, in line with the Commission's own good practice when it comes to proposing and agreeing to fair solutions: to split my application into 7 separate requests that can be processed separately, consecutively in the following order:
• Request 1: Eurogas, GasNaturally and the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (IOGP) documents
• Request 2: Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE), ExxonMobil and Shell documents
• Request 3: CEFIC, Hydrogen Europe and FTI Consulting documents
• Request 4: Gazprom, GRTgaz/GRDF/Engie and IFIEC Europe documents
• Request 5: ENTSOG, ENTSOE and Eurelectric documents
• Request 6 :Terega, Statoil/Equinor, BP documents
• Request 7: Bioenergy Europe, European Biogas Association, National Grid documents
I believe that the arrangement above would allow the Commission to process my requests in full compliance with Court of Justice case law, and to do so without the need to impose serious limitations to the scope of my research. I therefore hope that the Commission will find this a suitable solution.
Best,
Belén Balanyá
Your message has been received by the Transparency Unit of the
Secretariat-General of the European Commission.
Requests for public access to documents are treated on the basis of
[1]Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 of 30 May 2001 regarding public access to
European Parliament, Council and Commission documents.
The Secretariat-General will reply to your request within 15 working days
upon registration of your request and will duly inform you of the
registration of the request (or of any additional information to be
provided in view of its registration and/or treatment).
L’unité «Transparence» du secrétariat général de la Commission européenne
a bien reçu votre message.
Les demandes d’accès du public aux documents sont traitées sur la base du
[2]règlement (CE) n° 1049/2001 du 30 mai 2001 relatif à l’accès du public
aux documents du Parlement européen, du Conseil et de la Commission.
Le secrétariat général répondra à votre demande dans un délai de 15 jours
ouvrables à compter de la date d’enregistrement de votre demande, et vous
informera de cet enregistrement (ou vous indiquera toute information
supplémentaire à fournir en vue de l'enregistrement et/ou du traitement de
votre demande).
Ihre Nachricht ist beim Referat „Transparenz“ des Generalsekretariats der
Europäischen Kommission eingegangen.
Anträge auf Zugang zu Dokumenten werden auf der Grundlage der
[3]Verordnung (EG) Nr. 1049/2001 vom 30. Mai 2001 über den Zugang der
Öffentlichkeit zu Dokumenten des Europäischen Parlaments, des Rates und
der Kommission behandelt.
Das Generalsekretariat beantwortet Ihre Anfrage innerhalb von
15 Arbeitstagen nach deren Registrierung und wird Sie über die
Registrierung Ihres Antrags (oder die Notwendigkeit weiterer Informationen
im Hinblick auf dessen Registrierung und/oder Bearbeitung) unterrichten.
References
Visible links
1. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/...
2. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/...
3. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/...
Dear Mrs Balanya,
Please find attached an advanced copy of the answer to your request here
above referenced.
CoverNote
Annexes
The original will follow by registered mail.
Best regards
Thierry LIBERT
European Commission – DG Energy
Unit ENER.A.1 - Energy Policy Coordination
Phone: +32 2 29 80503 | Mobile: +32 473 71 19 08
Email: [1][email address]