Dear Ms Castro,

Thank you for email from 9 July 2021. We hereby acknowledge receipt of
your application for access to documents, which was registered on 23 July
2021 under reference number GESTDEM 2021/4713.

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 13
August 2021. In case this time limit needs to be extended, you will be
informed in due course.

You have lodged your application via 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 Commission. For further information on your
rights, please refer to the third party’s privacy policy.

We understand that the third party running the AsktheEU.org website
usually publishes the content of applicants’ correspondence with the
Commission on that website. This includes the personal data that you may
have communicated to the 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 that your correspondence with the Commission is
published on a private third-party website such as AsktheEU.org, you can
provide us with an alternative, private e-mail address for further
correspondence. In that case, the Commission will send all future
electronic correspondence addressed to you only to that private address,
and it will use only that private address to reply to your request. You
should still remain responsible to inform the private third-party website
about this change of how you wish to communicate with, and receive a reply
from, the Commission.

For information on how we process your personal data visit our page
Privacy statement – access to documents.

Yours sincerely,

Access to Documents team

European Commission

Directorate-General for Climate Action

Av. de Beaulieu 24

1049 Brussels

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

Dear Ms Castro,

We refer to your request for access to documents from 09/07/2021 and
registered on 23/07/2021 under the above mentioned reference number.

Your application is currently being handled. However, we will not be in a
position to complete the handling of your application within the time
limit of 15 working days, which expires on 13/08/2021.

An extended time limit is needed in order to retrieve the documents
requested, and a large files have to be examined. Furthermore, the
documents requested may originate from third parties, that need to be
consulted.

In view of the broad formulation of your request and in order to
facilitate the search for the relevant documents, I kindly ask you to
specify whether you would rather like to obtain public access to
correspondence on more general policies/legislation issues handled by DG
CLIMA – OR - also documents concerning any individual
regulatory/administrative procedures that Volkswagen might have been
routinely part of, as for car manufacturers under the legislation in
force.

At this moment, 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 03/09/2021.

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

Yours faithfully,

DG CLIMA access to documents team

From: CLIMA ACCESS DOCUMENTS
Sent: Monday, July 26, 2021 5:51 PM
To: '[FOI #9759 email]'
<[FOI #9759 email]>
Subject: Your access to documents request

Dear Ms Castro,

Thank you for email from 9 July 2021. We hereby acknowledge receipt of
your application for access to documents, which was registered on 23 July
2021 under reference number GESTDEM 2021/4713.

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 13
August 2021. In case this time limit needs to be extended, you will be
informed in due course.

You have lodged your application via 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 Commission. For further information on your
rights, please refer to the third party’s privacy policy.

We understand that the third party running the AsktheEU.org website
usually publishes the content of applicants’ correspondence with the
Commission on that website. This includes the personal data that you may
have communicated to the 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 that your correspondence with the Commission is
published on a private third-party website such as AsktheEU.org, you can
provide us with an alternative, private e-mail address for further
correspondence. In that case, the Commission will send all future
electronic correspondence addressed to you only to that private address,
and it will use only that private address to reply to your request. You
should still remain responsible to inform the private third-party website
about this change of how you wish to communicate with, and receive a reply
from, the Commission.

For information on how we process your personal data visit our page
Privacy statement – access to documents.

Yours sincerely,

Access to Documents team

European Commission

Directorate-General for Climate Action

Av. de Beaulieu 24

1049 Brussels

References

Visible links
1. file:///tmp/cid:filelist.xml@01D79039.3B45BA40
2. file:///tmp/cid:editdata.mso
3. file:///tmp/~~themedata~~
4. file:///tmp/~~colorschememapping~~

Dear Ms Castro,

In the absence of any other e-mail address of a phone number to call, we
kindly reiterate our request as highlighted below.

We will be grateful for your feedback, kind regards

DG CLIMA access to documents team

From: CLIMA ACCESS DOCUMENTS <[DG CLIMA request email]>
Sent: Friday, August 13, 2021 11:50 AM
To: [FOI #9759 email]
Subject: Your application for access to documents – GESTDEM 2021/4713 –
deadline extension - Ares(2021)5101229

Dear Ms Castro,

We refer to your request for access to documents from 09/07/2021 and
registered on 23/07/2021 under the above mentioned reference number.

Your application is currently being handled. However, we will not be in a
position to complete the handling of your application within the time
limit of 15 working days, which expires on 13/08/2021.

An extended time limit is needed in order to retrieve the documents
requested, and a large files have to be examined. Furthermore, the
documents requested may originate from third parties, that need to be
consulted.

In view of the broad formulation of your request and in order to
facilitate the search for the relevant documents, I kindly ask you to
specify whether you would rather like to obtain public access to
correspondence on more general policies/legislation issues handled by DG
CLIMA – OR - also documents concerning any individual
regulatory/administrative procedures that Volkswagen might have been
routinely part of, as for car manufacturers under the legislation in
force.

At this moment, 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 03/09/2021.

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

Yours faithfully,

DG CLIMA access to documents team

From: CLIMA ACCESS DOCUMENTS
Sent: Monday, July 26, 2021 5:51 PM
To: '[FOI #9759 email]'
<[1][FOI #9759 email]>
Subject: Your access to documents request

Dear Ms Castro,

Thank you for email from 9 July 2021. We hereby acknowledge receipt of
your application for access to documents, which was registered on 23 July
2021 under reference number GESTDEM 2021/4713.

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 13
August 2021. In case this time limit needs to be extended, you will be
informed in due course.

You have lodged your application via 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 Commission. For further information on your
rights, please refer to the third party’s privacy policy.

We understand that the third party running the AsktheEU.org website
usually publishes the content of applicants’ correspondence with the
Commission on that website. This includes the personal data that you may
have communicated to the 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 that your correspondence with the Commission is
published on a private third-party website such as AsktheEU.org, you can
provide us with an alternative, private e-mail address for further
correspondence. In that case, the Commission will send all future
electronic correspondence addressed to you only to that private address,
and it will use only that private address to reply to your request. You
should still remain responsible to inform the private third-party website
about this change of how you wish to communicate with, and receive a reply
from, the Commission.

For information on how we process your personal data visit our page
Privacy statement – access to documents.

Yours sincerely,

Access to Documents team

[2]cid:image001.png@01D792C1.90D6AB10

European Commission

Directorate-General for Climate Action

Av. de Beaulieu 24

1049 Brussels

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[FOI #9759 email]

Dear Ms. Castro,

We refer to your e-mail of  9 July 2021 in which you make a request for
access to documents, registered on 26 July 2021 under reference Gestdem
2021/4713.

In an email of 13 August 2021, we informed you that your request concerns
large number of documents which need to be assessed individually and we
kindly requested you a clarification as regards the scope of the request.
The analysis of these documents, together with the need to consult the
third parties concerned in accordance with Article 4(4) of Regulation (EC)
No 1049/2001, cannot be expected to be completed within the normal time
limits set out in Article 7 of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001. We did not
receive a reply to our request.

Article 6(3) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 provides for a possibility to
confer with an applicant informally with a view to finding a fair solution
when an application relates to a very long document or concerns a very
large number of documents. In accordance with the case law of the EU
Courts, such a solution can only concern the content or the number of
documents requested, not the deadline for replying. This means that the
scope of the request must be reduced in a way that would enable its
processing within the extended deadline of 15 + 15 working days.

The first identification of documents concerns around 150 documents. The
retrieval and establishment of a complete list of the documents
identified, its scanning, the assessment, redactions and third party
consultation would not allow us to reply within the deadline established
by the legislation.

The large majority of these documents correspond to individual
regulatory/administrative procedures that Volkswagen might have been
routinely part of, as for car manufacturers under the legislation in
force. These documents relate to obligations set out in articles 6
(monitoring and reporting of average emissions), 7 (pooling), 10
(derogations) and 11 (eco-innovation) of Regulation (EU) 2019/631 of the
European Parliament and of the Council of 17 April 2019 setting CO2
emission performance standards for new passenger cars and for new light
commercial vehicles, and repealing Regulations (EC) No 443/2009 and (EU)
No 510/2011.

Besides these large number of regulatory/administrative documents, we have
identified some documents with a focus on policies/legislation issues
handled by DG CLIMA. We consider that if we limit the scope to these last
category, we can deal with your request within the extended deadline of 30
working days.

Therefore, we would like to propose to reduce the scope to “All
correspondence, including emails, sent and received since 01/01/2020,
between the Commissioner for Climate Action, his cabinet, his officials,
and any other representatives of DG CLIMA, and representatives from
Volkswagen (VW) and its subsidiaries, which relate to policy or
legislation developments. This would exclude regulatory/administrative
routine procedures”.

If you consider that some of the categories of the
regulatory/administrative documents listed above (separated according to
the relevant article in legislation) are relevant for your application, we
would appreciate if you could indicate which ones should be considered.

In order to enable us to respect the time-limits of Regulation (EC) No
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 e-mail to: [1][email address]

In the absence of a reply within five working days, we will unilaterally
restrict the scope of your application to those parts that can be dealt
with within the extended deadline of 30 working days, counting from the
registration of your application.

Thank you in advance for your understanding.

Yours faithfully,

Access to Documents team

European Commission

Directorate-General for Climate Action

Av. de Beaulieu 24

1049 Brussels

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]

Dear Ms Castro,

Enclosed please find a copy of our reply.

According to standard operational procedure, the reply is usually also
sent to you by registered post. Please note, however, that due to the
extraordinary health and security measures currently in force during to
the COVID-19 epidemics, which include the requirement for all Commission
non-critical staff to telework, we are unfortunately not in a position to
follow this procedure until further notice.

We would therefore appreciate if you could confirm receipt of the present
e-mail by replying to [1][email address].

Kind regards,

Access to Documents team

European Commission

Directorate-General for Climate Action

Av. de Beaulieu 24

1049 Brussels

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]