Our reference: EP(2021)012668 – acknowledgement of receipt

Dear Mr Nielsen,

The European Parliament hereby acknowledges receipt of your application
for public access to documents, which was registered on 06 May 2021.

All requests for public access to documents are treated in compliance with
Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 of 30 May 2001 regarding public access to
European Parliament, Council and Commission documents.

In accordance with the above-mentioned Regulation, your application will
be handled within 15 working days upon registration of your request.

Your personal data will be processed in accordance with Regulation (EU)
2018/1725 of 23 October 2018 on the protection of natural persons with
regard to the processing of personal data by the Union institutions,
bodies, offices and agencies and on the free movement of such data.

The European Parliament reserves the right to ask for additional
information regarding your identity in order to verify compliance with
Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 and the European Parliament’s implementing
measures.

Your attention is drawn to the fact that you have lodged your application
via the AsktheEU.org website, which is a private website not officially
related to the European Parliament. Therefore, the European Parliament
cannot be held accountable for any technical issues or problems linked to
the use of this system.

In addition, please note that any personal data that you provide by using
AsktheEU.org website may be disclosed to the general public and visible on
this private website. The European Parliament cannot be held responsible
for such disclosure. Should you need to communicate directly to Parliament
any personal data and would like to avoid public disclosure, you may do so
from your private email address by using the following functional mailbox
address: AccesDocs(at)europarl.europa.eu

Kind regards,

[1]cid:image001.png@01D58B31.E2CF1C20 TRANSPARENCY UNIT
European Parliament
Directorate-General for the
Presidency
Directorate for Interinstitutional
Affairs and Legislative Coordination
[2][email address]
[3]www.europarl.europa.eu/RegistreWeb

References

Visible links
2. mailto:[email address]
3. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegistreWeb

Our reference: EP(2021)012668

Dear Mr Nielsen,

The time limit for responding to your application, registered on 6 May
2021 for public access to documents under Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001
expires on 1 June 2021.

However, the internal consultation with regard to your application
requires more time than expected, so that Parliament must exceptionally
extend the time limit provided by Article 7(1) of Regulation (EC) No
1049/2001 by a further 15 working days in accordance with Article 7(3) of
that Regulation in order to reply to your application.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience. We thank you for your
understanding.

Best regards,

TRANSPARENCY UNIT
European Parliament
Directorate-General for the Presidency
Directorate for Interinstitutional Affairs and Legislative Coordination
[1][European Parliament request email]
[2]www.europarl.europa.eu/RegistreWeb

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[European Parliament request email]
2. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegistreWeb

Dear Mr Nielsen,

On 6 May, we registered your request for access to documents containing
the names and dates of committee visits to Washington DC, Jakarta, New
York City and Addis Ababa from 2016 to 2020 and the projected costs of
Parliament's planned added presence in Jakarta, Addis Ababa and New York
City.

As a preliminary remark, Parliament draws your attention to the fact that
the scope of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001, as defined in its Article 2(3),
extends only to documents held by an institution, whereas it does not
cover the broader concept of information. Information may be distinguished
from a document, in particular, as far as it is defined as a data element
that may appear in one or multiple documents.

With regard to committee visits, Parliament would like to note that
pursues dialogue with partners in third countries through the work of its
delegations, an overview of which you can find [1]here. However,
committees also often conduct missions. All mission reports, for
delegations as well as for committees, are available on [2]Parliaments
Public Register of Documents. More specifically, you may find all
committee mission reports for the time period you are interested in
[3]here, and all delegation mission reports for the time period you are
interested in [4]here.

With regard to Parliament's planned added presence in Jakarta, Addis Ababa
and New York City, it must be emphasised that this does not concern the
establishment of new European Parliament Liaison Offices (EPLOs). You may
find information about EPLOs [5]here. Your application, however, concerns
the Bureau's decision of 11 February 2019, publicly available on the
Public Register of Documents [6]here, to make available parliamentary
support in external delegations of the European Union with an initial
focus on the EU Mission to ASEAN, the EU delegation to the African Union
and the EU delegation to the UN in New York. That decision did not entail
any increase in the Parliament’s staffing plan. Such parliamentary support
in external delegations is therefore not connected to existing EPLOs in
the EU (and in Washington DC) that, inter alia, provide support to Members
of the European Parliament in the exercise of their official mandates in
the Member States, engage with citizens and stakeholders and manage
contacts with national, regional and local media.

Details regarding the costs and benefits of such parliamentary support are
contained on page 24 of the follow-up document to the 2018 discharge,
which is publicly available [7]here. With regard to costs, and up to now,
only one member of staff has been deployed to the EU delegation in
Jakarta, and none to the EU delegation in Addis Ababa or New York. The
total costs incurred, during 2019, were EUR 12 356,00 in mission costs.
During 2020 no staff was deployed to any of the above mentioned
delegations. The presence of a limited number of officials within the
selected EU delegations would bring benefits to both Parliament and the
EEAS and aims to strengthen Parliament's relations with the parliamentary
dimensions of those regional organisations, deepen inter-parliamentary
relations and enhance the dialogue between legislators.

On this basis, Parliament considers your application as handled and the
file closed. Should you have any new requests for specific Parliament
documents, please do not hesitate to come back to us.

Best regards,

[8]cid:image001.png@01D58B31.E2CF1C20 TRANSPARENCY UNIT

 
European Parliament
Directorate-General for the Presidency
Directorate for Interinstitutional
Affairs and Legislative Coordination
[9][email address]
[10]www.europarl.europa.eu/RegistreWeb

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