Evidence of Commission acting on conflict of interest cases in expert groups
Dear Secretariat General (SG),
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:
1) All instances over the last five years whereby the European Commission (or relevant DG) has flagged up a conflict of interest of one of the members of an expert group or similar entity.
2) All instances whereby the aforementioned flagged interest subsequently led to a member being excluded from a particular meeting or from the relevant expert group.
Yours faithfully,
Pascoe Sabido
Dear Secretariat General (SG),
By law, I should have already had a response to my inquiry regarding instances when the Commission has acted on a conflict of interest case in expert groups. However, this is not the case.
Please can you provide me with a) the reason why this law has not been followed and b) a timeframe in which I am to expect a response.
Yours faithfully,
Pascoe Sabido
Dear Mr Sabido,
I refer to the application for access to documents and information related
to "conflict of interest cases in Expert groups", which you filed via the
"Ask the EU" web facility.
Your application was registered under the reference Gestdem 2013/3867
You have asked the following document to be divulged:
" (…) Documents which contain the following information:
1) All instances over the last five years whereby the European
Commission (or relevant DG) has flagged up a conflict of interest
of one of the members of an expert group or similar entity.
2) All instances whereby the aforementioned flagged interest
subsequently led to a member being excluded from a particular
meeting or from the relevant expert group."
Let me first apologise.
The secretariat general of the European Commission doesn’t manage
centrally the activities of the expert groups of the Commission, nor does
it hold any central file with the type of information which you indicate
as a way to identify the documents which you wish to be divulged. The
micro management of the expert groups is done in a fully decentralised
fashion. In order to proceed with your application, and as a fair
solution, within the meaning of article 6.3 of the regulation to enable
us to handle it, we are launching a call within our services asking them
if they have such documents which would have documented the type of
situation which you indicate, if it is the case, to identify, retrieve and
send us any such document in their possession. Once we will have
collected any input of this sort we will have to analyse those documents,
if they exists, in the light of the regulation's requirements for
authorizing or not their divulgation in full or in part.
As indicated to you on the phone when you discussed this approach with M.
Legris, we will set a time span for collecting these inputs until mid
September and we will, at that time, contact you to inform you of the
state of play of our research.
I thank you for your understanding.
Yours sincerely,
Paul SIMON
European Commission - Secretariat General
Unit SG.B.5, Transparency
Dear Mr Sabido,
Kindly find the answer to your application concerning your request for
access to documents pursuant to Regulation (EC) N° 1049/2001 regarding
public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents
(gestdem 2013-3867).
Yours sincerely,
Paul SIMON
Unit SG.B.5, Transparency
European Commission