Dear Mrs Seppe,
 
Thank you for your e-mail  dated 31/10/2016.  We hereby acknowledge
receipt of your application for access to documents, which was registered
on 03/11/2016 under GESTDEM 2016/6157 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
24/11/2016. In case this time limit needs to be extended, you will be
informed in due course.
 
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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Dear Ms Seppe,

We refer to your e-mail dated 31 October 2016 in which you make a request for access to documents, registered on the same day, under the above mentioned reference number.

The description given in your application is very broad and does not enable us to identify concrete documents in the historical archives which would correspond to your request.

We therefore invite you, pursuant to Article 6(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 regarding public access to documents, to provide us with more detailed information on the documents which you seek to obtain, such as:

- Request no. 1 [all correspondence (including letters, emails, phone logs), agendas, minutes of meetings and any other reports of such meetings between officials of the Secretariat General (including former Commission President José Manuel Barroso and members of his Cabinet) and representatives of Goldman Sachs concerning the Greek government-debt crisis]: this would cover Mr Barroso and his Cabinet, but please be more specific regarding the notion of officials of the Secretariat General, do you mean the former Secretary General, Mrs Catherine Day?

- Request no. 2 [all correspondence (including letters, emails, phone logs), agendas, minutes of meetings and any other reports of such meetings between officials of the Secretariat General (including former Commission President José Manuel Barroso and members of his Cabinet) and representatives of JPMorgan Chase concerning the Greek government-debt crisis]: this would cover Mr Barosso and his Cabinet, but please be more specific regarding the notion of officials of the Secretariat General, do you mean the former Secretary General, Mrs Catherine Day?

- Request no. 3 [all documents (including minutes, memos, notes, reports for internal use) and all correspondence (including letters, emails and phone logs) held by the European Commission (including the Commissioners and members of their Cabinets and the former Commission President José Manuel Barroso and members of his Cabinet) concerning Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase in relation to the Greek government-debt crisis]: this will cover Mr Barroso and his Cabinet, but please specify the other Commissioner concerned (would it be Mr Rehn, former Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Euro)?

- Request no. 4 [all correspondence (including letters, emails, phone logs), agendas, minutes of meetings and any other reports of such meetings between officials of the Secretariat General (including former Commission President José Manuel Barroso and members of his Cabinet) and the following individuals]: as the notion of officials of the Secretariat General is very broad, please specify again if you mean the former Secretary General, Mrs Day. Additionally, please list the subject matter, which is needed to enable the search.

The 15-working-day time limit for handling your application will start running when we receive the requested clarifications.

Thank you in advance for your understanding.

Yours sincerely,

ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS TEAM (PS)
European Commission
Secretariat General
Unit SG.B4 – Transparency

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Dear Ms Seppe,

Thank you for your reply to our clarification request. Please note that your request has been split into the following batches, with the following Gestdem references:

- 2016/6157 (all correspondence [...] between officials of the former Secretariat General, Mrs Catherine Day and representatives of Goldman Sachs concerning the Greek government-debt crisis - assigned to SG.D1);
- 2016/6383 (all correspondence [...] between officials of former Commission President José Manuel Barroso and members of his Cabinet and representatives of Goldman Sachs concerning the Greek government-debt crisis - assigned to SG.B4);
- 2016/6385 (all documents [...] and all correspondence [...] held by the European Commission concerning Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase in relation to the Greek government-debt crisis - assigned to DG ECFIN)
- 2016/6387 (all correspondence [...] between officials of the former Secretariat General, Catherine Day and the [listed] individuals - assigned to SG.B4);
- 2016/6388 (all correspondence [...] between officials of the former Commission President José Manuel Barroso and members of his Cabinet and the [listed] individuals - assigned to SG.B4).

In accordance with Regulation (EC) N° 1049/2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents, you will receive a response to these batches by 2 December 2016.

If this deadline needs to be extended, you will be informed in due course.

As the last part of your answer did not provide clarification on request no. 4 (Gestdem 2016/6387 and 6388), and based on our provisional assessment, it would appear that the treatment of this part of your request would constitute a disproportionate workload.

You ask for "All correspondence (including letters, emails, phone logs), agendas, minutes of meetings and any other reports of such meetings between officials of the former Secretariat General, Catherine Day (including former Commission President José Manuel Barroso and members of his Cabinet) and the following individuals:

• Lloyd C. Blankfein
• M. Michele Burns
• Gary D. Cohn
• William W. George
• James A. Johnson
• Lakshmi N. Mittal
• Adebayo O. Ogunlesi
• Peter Oppenheimer
• Debora L. Spar
• Mark E. Tucker
• David A. Viniar
• John F. W. Rogers
• Michael Sherwood
• Harvey M. Schwartz
• Gregory K. Palm
• Alan M. Cohen
• Edith W. Cooper
• Mark Schwartz
• Richard A. Friedman
• Timothy J. O'neill
• Masanori Mochida
• Esta E. Stecher
• Richard J. Gnodde
• David M. Solomon
• Craig W. Broderick
• Edith W. Cooper
• Isabelle Ealet
• Gwen R. Libstag
• Paul M. Russo
• Pablo J. Salame
• Jeff W. Schroeder
• Michael D. Daffey
• Kenneth W. Hitchner
• Eric S. Lane
• Gregg R. Lemkau
• Stephen M. Scherr
• Sarah E. Smith
• Steven H. Strongin
• Ashok Varadhan
• John Waldron
• Alan M. Cohen
• Justin G. Gmelich
• Marc Nachmann
• R. Martin Chavez
• James P. Esposito
• Amanda S. Hindlian
• Antigone Loudiadis

I am requesting all documents within the time frame February 2010 till November 2014."

You did not specify, as requested by us, the subject matter linked to these documents, which would have enabled the search. Archives of former Barroso Commission have become historical archives and require a very specific handling to retrieve them as they might not all be directly accessible electronically. The resources available at the historical archives can only handle one search at once and other Commission services may be in the process of asking copies of documents filed in the historical archives. Each request requires a very precise description of the document requested (registration number, date, author, subject). In exceptional circumstances and subject to time availability the historical archives can conduct a research based on a more limited number of criteria and try to identify the corresponding document.

Such requests are more time-consuming and can take up to half a day for a single document.

In the light of the above, in order to identify the documents for 47 authors and assuming that there is only one document per author, without any clarification regarding the subject matter or the date, a minimum of 23.5 working days could be required. This figure could be increased in case more than one document per author would be searched. To this we would need to add the usual time necessary to list and analyse the documents, redact personal data or any other possibly sensitive elements, if any, prepare the final answer and have it formally approved and dispatched.

Therefore, I would like to propose that, in line with Article 6(3) of Regulation 1049/2001, you specify the reason why you are interested in obtaining access to these documents, and which (types of) documents you are interested in in particular, or as a matter of priority (subject matter).

If, on the contrary, you wish to maintain your wide-scope request and not identify further what type(s) of documents and which subject matter(s) you are primarily interested in, I propose to reduce the list of authors to a maximum of ten of your choice.

Such a narrowed-down scope would cover a more manageable number of documents including the preparation of the redacted versions thereof.

We would be grateful for a reply by three working days (i.e. 17 November 2016, eob).

Thank you in advance.

ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS TEAM (PS)
European Commission
Secretariat General
Unit SG.B4 – Transparency

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Veuillez trouver ci-joint le document Ares(2016)6709443 concernant "Reply-GESTDEM 2016-6157 Ms Seppe" envoyé par M/Mme ve_sg.dsg1.d1 le 30/11/2016.

Please find attached document Ares(2016)6709443 regarding "Reply-GESTDEM 2016-6157 Ms Seppe" sent by Mr/Ms ve_sg.dsg1.d1 on 30/11/2016.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 ARTAMENDI ERRO Nerea (SG.DSG1.D.1) (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 ARTAMENDI ERRO Nerea (SG.DSG1.D.1) (mailto:[email address]).

Dear Ms Seppe,

Please find attached a letter regarding your application for access to
documents under Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 - Gestdem 2016/6383 and
2016/6388.

Yours sincerely,

ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS TEAM (PS)

European Commission

Secretariat General

Unit SG.B4 – Transparency

Dear Ms Seppe,

Please find attached the reply to your request for access to documents
pursuant to Regulation (EC) N° 1049/2001 regarding public access to
European Parliament, Council and Commission documents with ref. GestDem
2016/6383.

This letter is sent by email and also by registered mail requesting
acknowledgment of receipt.

Yours sincerely,

ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS TEAM (PS)

European Commission

Secretariat General

Unit SG.B4 – Transparency

Dear Ms Seppe,

Please find attached the reply to your request for access to documents
pursuant to Regulation (EC) N° 1049/2001 regarding public access to
European Parliament, Council and Commission documents with ref. GestDem
2016/6388.

This letter is sent by email and also by registered mail requesting
acknowledgment of receipt.

Yours sincerely,

ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS TEAM (PS)

European Commission

Secretariat General

Unit SG.B4 – Transparency

Dear Ms. Seppe,
 
I refer to your e-mail dated 31 October 2016 in which you make a request
for access to documents, registered on 14 November 2016 under the above
mentioned reference number (for the part attributed to DG Economic and
Financial Affairs).
 
You request access to all documents [...] and all correspondence [...]
held by the European Commission concerning Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan
Chase in relation to the Greek government-debt crisis - in the period
between February 2010 and November 2014.
 
Having examined your request under the provisions of Regulation (EC) No
1049/2001 regarding public access to documents, I wish to inform you that
– as regards DG Economic and Financial Affairs and the former Cabinet -
there are no documents corresponding to the criteria that you have
defined.
 
In accordance with Article 7(2) of Regulation 1049/2001, you are entitled
to make a confirmatory application requesting the Commission to review
this position.
 
Such a confirmatory application should be addressed within 15 working days
upon receipt of this e-mail to the Secretary-General of the Commission at
the following address:
 
European Commission
Secretary-General
Transparency unit SG-B-4
BERL 5/282
B-1049 Brussels
 
or by email to: [1][SG request email]
 
Yours sincerely,
 
Paul KUTOS
Head of Unit
European Commission
Economic and Financial Affairs DG
Unit F2: Economies of the Member States – Greece
CHAR 10/236 - B-1049 Brussels
(   +32 (0)2 29 60923
+  [2][email address]
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