Dear Trade,

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:

All documents—including but not limited to correspondence, emails, minutes, notes (hand written or electronic), audio or video recordings, verbatim reports, operational conclusions, lines to take, briefings, and presentations—related to the meetings on February 1st, 2023, between the Minister of Foreign Relations of Argentina Santiago Cafiero and Vice-President of the European Commission (EC) and High Representative of the EU for External Affairs, Josep Borrell, together with the Executive Vice-President of the EC and Commissioner for EU Trade, Valdis Dombrovskis, and the European Commissioner for International Partnerships, Jutta Urpilainen.

I would prefer to receive documents electronically but if that is not possible please use the following postal address:

Transport & Environment
18 Square de Meeûs, 1050 Brussels
Belgium

I would like to make clear I prefer you produce the documents on a rolling basis. At no point should the Commission's search for—or deliberations concerning—certain documents delay the production of others that the Commission has already retrieved and elected to produce.
Please confirm having received this application. I look forward to your reply within 15 business days, according to the Regulation.

Yours faithfully,
Barbara Smailagic

Dear Trade,

The response to my request has been delayed. By law, I should have normally received a response from you by August 25, 2023. I look forward to your prompt response to my request.

Yours faithfully,

Barbara Smailagic

Dear Trade,

the response to this request is long overdue. By law, under all circumstances, the authority should have responded by now.

I am hence requesting an internal review to understand why the reply to this request has been so slow.

Yours faithfully,

Barbara Smailagic

Dear Trade,

I am writing to you with regard to my request, on behalf of the European Federation for Transport and Environment, for documentation from meetings on February 1st 2023 between Santiago Cafiero and EU officials.

Due to Trade’s failure to meet the legally obligated timeframe deadlines (as outlined below), this message is to inform you that, should we not receive the requested documents by Friday 01/12/2023, we will be reporting the request to the European Ombudsman.
This request, which was originally made under the right of access to documents in the EU treaties, as developed in Regulation 1049/2001, is also pertinent to UNECE Aarhus convention, due to the environmental nature of the subject matter. Here are the details of the request and failures on your behalf to meet legally obligated timeframe deadlines:
- This request was initially made by me (Barbara Smailagic) on 04/08/2023. After receiving no response within the legally obligated timeframe of 15 working days, as per Regulation 1049/2001, I sent a reminder on 28/08/2023. Having still received no response, in violation of the legally obligated timeframe, another reminder and a request for an internal review was sent on 28/09/2023.
- On 29/09/2023, I received confirmation that the request had finally been registered, and that a response was to be expected by 20/10/2023. Trade confirmed they would inform me if they needed to extend this time limit for an additional 15 working days. No such information was ever received. No further communication was received from Trade, despite surpassing the legally obligated deadline mentioned in their previous message.

It is for these reasons that we will be reporting the request to the European Ombudsman should we not receive the requested documents by Friday 01/12/2023.

Regards,
Barbara Smailagic