Ref. Ares(2022)3943866 - 25/05/2022
EUROPEAN COMMISSION
DIRECTORATE-GENERAL
CLIMATE ACTION
The Director-General
Brussels
CLIMA.A.1
Ms Belen Balanya
Corporate Europe Observatory
Rue d'Edimbourg 26
B - 1050 Bruxelles
By email to:
ask+request-11073-
xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxx.xxx
Subject:
Your application for access to documents – GESTDEM 2022/2381
Dear Madam,
We refer to your e-mail of 22 April 2022 in which you make a request for access to
documents, registered on 27 April 2022 under the above-mentioned reference number.
You requested access to the following documents:
i)
“All correspondence (including email, whatsapp and SMS) since 8th
December 2021 between Commissioner Simson, Commissioner Timmermans,
Commissioner Breton, President van der Leyen, and/or their cabinets and/or
officials from DG Energy, DG Clima, DG Grow and/or Secretariat General
on one hand and any stakeholder on the other, in which the “EU
Neighbourhoods”, as mentioned in the European Clean Hydrogen Strategy,
were addressed.
ii)
List of meetings since since 8th December 2021 between Commissioner
Simson, Commissioner Timmermans, Commissioner Breton, President van
der Leyen, and/or their cabinets and/or officials from DG Energy, DG Clima,
DG Grow and/or Secretariat General on one hand and any stakeholder on the
other, in which the “EU Neighbourhoods”, as mentioned in the European
Clean Hydrogen Strategy, were addressed
iii)
Minutes of the meetings mentioned above”.
Your application for access to documents covers topics falling under the responsibility of
different Commission services. In that regard, your request was split into separate
Commission européenne/Europese Commissie, 1049 Bruxelles/Brussel, BELGIQUE/BELGIË - Tel. +32 22991111
requests, whereby each part is attributed to the respective Commission service under a
separate Gestdem reference number. Each service provides its own, separate reply, which
relates only to the documents originating or received by that service. In this regard, this
reply corresponds only to the documents held by the Directorate General for Climate
Action.
We regret to inform you that the Commission does not hold any documents that would
correspond to the description given in your application.
As specified in Article 2(3) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001, the right of access as
defined in that regulation applies only to existing documents in the possession of the
institution.
Given that no such documents, corresponding to the description given in your
application, are held by the Commission, the Commission is not in a position to fulfil
your request.
As regards point ii) of your request, please note that the list of meetings of the Director-
General of Directorate-General for Climate Action with organisations and self-employed
individuals is available in the link enclosed below:
http://ec.europa.eu/transparencyinitiative/meetings/meeting.do?host=d41e42be-7ff1-4635-
bb4f-e47d38f886ed
In your application you requested access to a list of meetings of the staff of the
Directorate-General for Climate Action. Please note that the officials of the European
Commission having the status of Director-General shall make public information on all
meetings held by them with organisations or self-employed individuals on issues relating
to policy-making and implementation in the Union in accordance with the Commission
Decision 2104/838/EU, Euratom of 25 November 20141. However, the same obligation
does not apply to lower-ranking officials, such as the remaining members of the
Directorate-General for Climate Action.
The Court of Justice held that ‘the right of access to documents of the institutions applies
only to existing documents in the possession of the institution concerned and […]
Regulation No 1049/2001 may not be relied upon to oblige an institution to create a
document which does not exist. It follows that, […], an application for access that would
require the Commission to create a new document, even if that document were based on
information already appearing in existing documents held by it, falls outside the
framework of Regulation No 1049/2001’2.
In the present case, the Directorate-General for Climate Action does not hold any list of
all meetings of its staff with the specific organisation concerned by your request in
addition to the publicly available information on meetings of the Director-General, which
is accessible via the abovementioned link. In this respect, I would like to confirm that
compiling such a list in order to fulfil your request would equal to the creation of a new
document, as neither can such a list be extracted from a database by means of a normal or
routine search.
1 OJ L 343, 28.11.2014, p. 19–21
2 Judgment of the Court of Justice of 11 January 2017,
Typke v
European Commission, C-491/15 P,
EU:C:2017:5, paragraph 31.
2
In accordance with Article 7(2) of Regulation (EC) No 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 letter to the Secretariat-General of the Commission at the following address:
European Commission
Secretariat-General
Transparency, Document Management & Access to Documents (SG.C.1)
BERL 7/076
B-1049 Brussels
or by email to:
xxxxxxxxxx@xx.xxxxxx.xx
Yours faithfully,
(Electronically signed)
Mauro PETRICCIONE
p.o. Clara DE LA TORRE
3
Electronically signed on 24/05/2022 19:35 (UTC+02) in accordance with Article 11 of Commission Decision (EU) 2021/2121
