The travel expenses of Commissioner Crețu, for the period 1 March to 30 April 2016
Dear Secretariat General of the European Commission,
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:
The travel expenses of Commissioner Crețu, for the period 1 March to 30 April 2016, as contained in the relevant mission summary fiches/settlement of mission expenses.
Yours faithfully
Alan Thornton
Eastbourne
East Sussex
England
Yours faithfully,
Alan Thornton
Dear M. Thornton
We refer to your application for access to documents of 10 August 2017, by
which you request, pursuant to Regulation 1049/2001 regarding public
access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents, access to
the travel expenses of Commissioner Crețu, for the period 1 March to 30
April 2016.
We would like to inform you in this respect that external organisation
Access Info Europe launched a campaign in January 2017 inviting citizens
to submit, under Regulation 1049/2001, requests for access to information
concerning Commissioners' mission expenses. The Commission subsequently
received some 200 requests for access to documents as part of that
campaign.
In settled case law, the EU Court of Justice has confirmed that, when
treating access-to-documents requests under Regulation 1049/2001, the
Commission needs to respect the principle of proportionality and ensure
that the interest of the applicant for access is balanced against the
workload resulting from the processing of the application for access in
order to safeguard the interests of good administration.
Accordingly, in response to the Access Info Europe campaign, the
Commission on 20 July 2017 processed and released 257 mission cost
statements (covering all missions carried out in January and February 2016
by the respective Commissioners).
Given that your request seems to have been triggered by, and/or covers a
similar subject matter as the above-mentioned campaign, and taking into
account the principle of proportionality, we kindly refer you to that
reply which AccessInfoEurope has published on its website, and of which
you will find a copy annexed.
On a more general note, we would also like to inform you that the
Commission undertook, once it has put in place the technical means to do
so, to publish proactively Commissioners' mission costs on a bi-monthly
basis, as reflected in its Draft Commission Decision on a Code of Conduct
for the Members of the European Commission of 12 September 2017.
Best regards,
ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS TEAM
European Commission
Secretariat General
Unit B4 - Transparency