Dear Environment,

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

All (draft versions of) documents – including but not limited to: correspondence, letters, presentations, attachments, emails, briefings and meeting notes – related to the letter of formal notice sent to the Netherlands (INFR(2023)2149) for failing to fully implement the requirements of the Convention on access to information, public participation in decision-making and access to justice in environmental matters.

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.

Yours faithfully,

Jan Daalder

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

Dear Environment,

Thank you for your reply. First of all: I understand that disclosing documents related to inspections, investigations, audit or infringement procedures might undermine the integrity of the process. Regarding documents 2-4 (THEMIS-858529-1703113200, Ref: THEMIS-858530-1703113200, and Ref: Ares
(2023)8748411) I understand these concerns. These documents might contain internal strategies or arguments that The Commission does not want to have made public.

However, I kindly ask you to reconsider regarding the Letter of formal notice of 7 February 2024 (Ref: THEMIS-973-1704409200). First of all, you already released a summary online (https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscor...). Furthermore this document has already been sent to the Dutch government. It should therefore not contain any sensitive information the might undermine the process.

Additionally, I believe releasing this document is in the public interest. I have four arguments for this.

1. Access to justice in environmental matters is a very pressing matter in the Netherlands. As you know, there have been many court rulings on nitrogen-related issues, but also cases like State of the Netherlands v Urgenda Foundation.

2. Furthermore, this infringement procedure was reported on (example: https://www.binnenlandsbestuur.nl/juridi...) but it is hard to verify what is actually happening. It would be in the public interest to not have any speculation and make sure citizens are informed of what the Commission actually thinks of the Dutch implementation of Aarhus.

3. Thirdly: shortly after the infringement procedure was started, the Dutch ministry announced plans to change policies to better adhere to Aarhus. This appears to have been done in response to the infringement procedure, but this can't be verified. It is also not possible to see whether these policy proposals would be enough to take away the concerns of the Commission.

4. Final argument: the Dutch parliament has to be able to scrutinise the government, and it is better equipped for this task if it has early access to this letter via the press

As a journalist I would like to have access to the formal letter of 7 February 2024 to hold the Dutch government accountable and to make sure there's no doubt or speculation in civil society about the extent or content of the infringement procedure.

Yours faithfully,

Jan Daalder

Dear Environment,

On 14/05/2024 I requested an internal review for my document request with case number 2024/2086. On 14/05/2024 you informed me the time limit would expire on 05/06/2024. On 05/06/2024 you informed me the time limit was extended to 26/06/2024.

I have however not heard back from you. Can you let me know before 16/07/2024 what the status of the internal review is?

Yours faithfully,

Jan Daalder