Briefings for Commissioner Oettinger / Cabinet Oettinger meetings

En attente d'une révision interne par Secrétariat général de la Commission européenne a propos de leur gestion de la demande.

Mathias Schindler

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 Briefing documents for meetings of Commissioner Oettinger with third parties as well as Briefing documents for meetings of cabinet members of Commissioner Oettinger with third parties.

I would like to limit the temporal scope of this request to meetings dated from September 1, 2016 to May 3, 2017.

For the sake of clarity, I am referring to meetings listed at http://ec.europa.eu/transparencyinitiati... as well as http://ec.europa.eu/transparencyinitiati... (titled "Meetings of Commissioner Günther Oettinger with organisations and self-employed individuals" and "Meetings of Cabinet members of Commissioner Günther Oettinger with organisations and self-employed individuals"). If Mr. Oettinger and/or his cabinet members held meetings with third parties that were not listed on this page for any reason, I want these briefings to be included in the request nonetheless.

If any of these briefing documents has previously been disclosed to the public in an unredacted manner, I am of course happy to receive the URL instead of the briefing document for the sake of avoidance of redundancy and effort reduction.

Yours faithfully,

Mathias Schindler

Secrétariat général de la Commission européenne

1 Attachment

Dear M. Schindler,
 
Thank you for your e-mail  dated  03/052017.  We hereby acknowledge
receipt of your application for access to documents, which was registered
on 03/05/2017 under GESTDEM 2017/2627 reference.
 
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
29/05/2017. In case this time limit needs to be extended, you will be
informed in due course.
Could you please confirm your postal address is : Bundestagsburo Julia
Reda, MdEP Unter den LInden 50 11011 Berlin ?
 
You have lodged your application via the AsktheEU.org website. Please note
that this is a private 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.

 
Yours faithfully,
 
ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS TEAM
European Commission
Secretariat General
Unit B4 - Transparency
 
 

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Mathias Schindler

Dear Secretariat General of the European Commission,

> "Bundestagsburo Julia
Reda, MdEP Unter den LInden 50 11011 Berlin ? "

The correct postal address is

Mathias Schindler
Bundestagsbüro Julia Reda, MEP
Unter den den Linden 50
11011 Berlin
Germany

Please be advised that electronic communication is the preferred method.

Yours faithfully,

Mathias Schindler

EC ARES NOREPLY, Secrétariat général de la Commission européenne

1 Attachment

Link: [1]File-List
Link: [2]Edit-Time-Data
Link: [3]themeData
Link: [4]colorSchemeMapping

[5]Ares(2017)2687208 - access to documents request - Briefings for
Commissioner Oettinger / Cabinet Oettinger meetings - GESTDEM 2017/2627

Sent by CORDERROURE I CARBONELL Merce (HR)
<[email address]>. All responses have to be sent to this
email address.
Envoyé par CORDERROURE I CARBONELL Merce (HR)
<[email address]>. Toutes les réponses doivent être
effectuées à cette adresse électronique.

Dear Mr Schindler,

Subject:       Your application for access to documents – Ref GestDem No
2017/2627

We refer to your e-mail dated 03/05/2017 in which you make a request for
access to documents, registered on 03/05/2017 under the above mentioned
reference number.

Your application is currently being handled. However, an extended time
limit is needed in order to retrieve the documents requested; large files
have to be examined;

Therefore, we have to extend the time limit with 15 working days in
accordance with Article 7(3) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 regarding
public access to documents. The new time limit expires on 20/06/2017.

We apologies for this delay and for any inconvenience this may cause.

Yours faithfully,

 

 

Mercè Corderroure

College, COMM, EPSC, HOME, IAS, JUST, OLAF, SG, SJ,TF50

[6]cid:image001.png@01D16D91.02025D90

DG Human Resources and Security

 

BERL 02/308

Rue de la Loi 200, B-1049 Brussels, Belgium 

+32 229-59704

[7][email address]

 

References

Visible links
1. file:///tmp/cid:filelist.xml@01D2D88F.DC0C4400
2. file:///tmp/cid:editdata.mso
3. file:///tmp/~~themedata~~
4. file:///tmp/~~colorschememapping~~
5. http://www.cc.cec/Ares/ext/documentInfoD...
7. mailto:[email address]

EC ARES NOREPLY, Secrétariat général de la Commission européenne

1 Attachment

Veuillez trouver ci-joint le document Ares(2017)3097666 concernant "Reply to access to document request- Briefing for Commissioner Oettinger- Cab Oettinger meetings - GESTDEM 2017/2627" envoyé par M/Mme DE VIS Jan le 20/06/2017.

Please find attached document Ares(2017)3097666 regarding "Reply to access to document request- Briefing for Commissioner Oettinger- Cab Oettinger meetings - GESTDEM 2017/2627" sent by Mr/Ms DE VIS Jan on 20/06/2017.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: This e-mail was automatically generated by the European Commission's central mail registration system.
Replies by e-mail must be addressed to the original sender DE VIS Jan (mailto:[email address]).
Remarque : Cet e-mail a été généré automatiquement par le système d'enregistrement central du courrier de la Commission européenne.
Toute réponse éventuelle par e-mail doit être adressée à l'expéditeur en personne, à savoir DE VIS Jan (mailto:[email address]).

Mathias Schindler

Dear Emiel Weizenbach,

thank you for your letter dated June 20, 2017.

I understand the Commission considers my request from May the 3rd to be an exceptional case as defined by Article 7 (3) of the Regulation 1049/2001, namely due to a very large number of documents. If that indeed the case, the Commission invoked its right to extend the time-limit to process this request for another 15 working days. While the initial time-limit on May 29, 2017, the extended time-limit was now June 20. The provisions of Article 6 (3) allow the Commission to confer with me informally in order to find a fair solution. Article 6 (3) does not contain a provision for another extension of the deadline for handling the request.

Secondly, it is implausible that it took the Commission from May 3 to June 20 to realize its inability to process the access to documents request within the standard or the extended time-limit. Any good faith invocation of Article 6 (3) would require the Commission to seek this informal exchange immediately and not at the end of the extended time-limit. Both the provisions of Article 7 (3) and Article 6 (3) are designed to allow the concerned institution to process the request. They are not designed to allow the institution to postpone the processing.

In the interest of an amicable solution to this access to documents request, I can give you the following proposal:

a) The scope of the request remains. The Commission can voluntarily extend the scope to the time frame of September 1, 2016 to June 20, 2017 to compensate for the processing time so far.

b) 45 working days after the date of the initial request, made on May 3, 2017 (which effectively means in 15 working days from June 20), the Commission provides an spreadsheet with the documents identified falling under my request concerning meetings of Mr. Oettinger and containing the following data: Author (Institution/DG/office; names of non-cabinet level officers need not be included), subject/headline/topic, date, Identifier such as Ares Number if applicable and a rough number of pages (an estimate or educated guess should be enough in order to keep the administrative burden to an absolute minimum).

c) 60 working days after the date of the initial request (which effectively means in 30 working days), the Commission provides an spreadsheet with the documents identified falling under my request concerning meeting of cabinet members of Mr. Oettinger and containing the same data as described above.

For each spreadsheet in b and c, I will immediately indicate to the Commission which of the documents should be scanned and assessed in light of the exceptions of Article 4. At this point, I will be happy to narrow the scope of the request of documents to reduce administrative burden.

d) 30 working days after the Commission has received my feedback on each of the two spreadsheets, the Commission will send the requested documents to me in separate batches.

Your suggestion for narrowing the temporal scope to meetings until January 1, 2017 would ignore the fact that Mr. Oettinger - as shown in his transparency releases - has continued to spend considerable time on topics of his former portfolio and is therefore not suitable.

Please note that I refrain from calling this proposed solution "fair" as is a far more considerate offer to the Commission than spirit and wording of the Regulation require. Any "fair" solution along the solution proposed would realistically produce much more narrow time-limits. I trust you share this assessment and will therefor accept it.

Yours faithfully,

Mathias Schindler

Mathias Schindler

Dear Secretariat General of the European Commission,

Please pass this on to the person who reviews confirmatory applications.

I am filing the following confirmatory application with regards to my access to documents request 'Briefings for Commissioner Oettinger / Cabinet Oettinger meetings'.

The access for documents request was made on May 3, 2017 and registered on the same day. On May 29, the Commission invoked its right to extend the time-limit for this request by another 15 working days under the claim that this is an exceptional request.

This extended deadline expired on June 20, 2017.

In accordance with Article 7 (4) of Regulation 1049/2001, failure to reply within the prescribed time-limit shall entitle the applicant to make a confirmatory application. This right is not waived or suspended by other measures.

A full history of my request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/brie...

Yours faithfully,

Mathias Schindler

Secrétariat général de la Commission européenne

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your email dated 30/06/2017, by which you request, pursuant to Regulation No 1049/2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents, a review of the position taken by DG HR in reply to your initial application GESTDEM 2017/2627.

We hereby acknowledge receipt of your confirmatory application for access to documents which was registered on 04/07/2017 (Ares(2017)3350434).

Your application will be handled within 15 working days (26/07/2017). In case this time limit needs to be extended, you will be informed in due course.

Please be informed that the answer to your confirmatory application is a formal Commission decision that will be notified to you by express delivery.

We kindly offer you the possibility to provide us a contact phone number (by email to [email address]), so that the external delivery service can contact you in case of absence.

Please note that the Commission will not use your phone number for any other purpose than for informing the delivery service, and that it will delete it immediately thereafter.

Yours faithfully,

Carlos Remis
SG.B.4
Transparence
Berl. 05/315

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Secrétariat général de la Commission européenne

2 Attachments

Dear Mr Schindler,
Please find attached a letter concerning your application for access to
documents under Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 – GESTDEM 2017/2627
Yours sincerely,
ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS TEAM
European Commission
Secretariat General
Unit B4 - Transparency
 
 
 

Secrétariat général de la Commission européenne

2 Attachments

Dear Mr Schindler,
Please find attached a letter concerning your application for access to
documents under Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 – GESTDEM 2017/2627
Yours sincerely,
ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS TEAM
European Commission
Secretariat General
Unit B4 - Transparency
 
 

Mathias Schindler

Dear Secretariat General of the European Commission,

thank you for your email dated August 17, 2017 concerning the Commission's failure to reply to the access to documents request within the time limits defined by the Regulation 1049/2001.

I would like to get an indication from you whether and when you expect the Commission have finished this internal consultation.

Yours faithfully,

Mathias Schindler

Secrétariat général de la Commission européenne

Dear Mr Schindler,

We are writing in reply to your question on when the Commission expects to
finalise its confirmatory decision concerning your request for access to
documents Gestdem 2017/2627.

We are unfortunately not in a position to give you a clear estimate on when the
confirmatory review of this request will be completed. Your requests concerns
a large number of briefings, which as required by Regulation 1049/2001 have to
be individually assessed for a possible full or partial release by the Cabinet
of Commissioner Oettinger and the Commission's Secretariat-General. In the
present case, due to the absence of an initial assessment and an initial
reply, this work is being done at the confirmatory level and takes a
considerable amount of time.

Moreover, once the assessment of the documents is completed, an agreement of
the Commission's Legal Service must also be obtained before the formal
approval of the confirmatory decision (by the Secretary-General) can be launched.

It is therefore difficult to estimate at present when the Commission will be
able to complete all of the above steps and send you its confirmatory
decision. Once again, we sincerely apologise for the delay in handling this
request and for the inconvenience caused. Please know however that we are
doing our utmost to send you our reply as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely,

ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS TEAM
European Commission
Secretariat General
Unit B4 - Transparency

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Mathias Schindler

Dear Secretariat General of the European Commission,

please update about the status of the confirmatory application GESTDEM 2017/2627

Yours faithfully,

Mathias Schindler

Secrétariat général de la Commission européenne

Dear Mr Schindler,

Thank you very much for your message concerning your confirmatory application for access to documents (Gestdem 2017/2627).

As indicated in our message of August 2017, your application covers a large amount of documents and each of them has to be individually assessed against the relevant provisions of Regulation 1049/2001. This assessment will be finalised as soon as possible and the decision-making process will be engaged afterwards.

Please be assured that we do our utmost to reply to your confirmatory application as soon as possible and we apologise again for any inconvenience the delay may cause.

Yours sincerely,

Carlos Remis
SG.B.4
Transparence
Berl. 05/315

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