Dear Sir,

Thank you for your e-mail of 08/09/2022. We hereby acknowledge receipt of your application for access to documents, which was registered on 12/09/2022 under reference number GESTDEM 2022/5109.

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 03/10/2022. 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 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 faithfully,

Access to Documents Team

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Dear Sir,

We refer to your e-mail dated 08/09/2022 in which you make a request for
access to documents, registered on 12/09/2022 under the above-mentioned
reference number.

The description given in your application does not enable us to identify
concrete documents 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 that you seek to obtain.

In particular: In the third  point of your request, please precise the
levels of communications targeted within the European Commission.  

If you need assistance in clarifying or specifying your application,
please let us know.

In accordance with Article 2, third paragraph of the Implementing Rules to
Regulation 1049/2001[1], the 15 working days time limit for handling your
application will start running when we receive the requested
clarifications.

Thank you in advance for your understanding.

Kind regards,

DG GROW – Access to documents team

European Commission
Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and
SMEs
DG  GROW/B1 – Planning and Briefings

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your additional precision and reply to clarification request sent to us on 19/09/2022 for this request GESTDEM 2022/5109, it is noted.

Kind regards,

DG GROW – Access to documents team

European Commission
Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs DG GROW/B1 – Planning and Briefings

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Dear Sir,

We refer to your email of 08/09/2022 and your email of 19/09/2022
clarifying your request and registered the same day, in which you
submitted a confirmatory application in accordance with Article 7(2) of
Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 regarding public access to European
Parliament, Council and Commission documents (hereafter ‘Regulation (EC)
No 1049/2001’).

You request concerns:

1.     The EU Pilot Document EU PILOT 5815/13/ENTR (Ref.:
Ares(2013)3800684)

2.     The draft Letter of Formal Notice, mentioned on page 3 in the
briefing note for Agnieszka Drzewoska (this is the link to the document:

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www....
)

3.     All further communication between PlasticsEurope  or any other
trade association representing the polymer producers and the European
Commission, regarding the french ban of Bisphenol A (BPA) since 2012
(additional clarification from the applicant: ). I am particularly
interested in communication between units of DG GROW and PlasticEurope and
other trade association representing the polymer producers, regarding the
French ban on Bisphenol A (BPA)).

We would like to inform you that your application concerns a very high
number of documents.

The work needed to conduct this review entails multiple steps:

•        Contacts/exchanges consultations within the Directorate-General
for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs;

•        Retrieval and establishment of a complete list of the documents
falling under the scope of your request;

•        Preliminary assessment of the content of the documents in light
of the exceptions of Article 4 of Regulation EC (No) 1049/2001;

•        Assessment of the further procedural steps to undertake, for
example whether third party consultations should be made;

•        (possibly) third-party consultations under Article 4(4) of
Regulation 1049/2001 and (possibly) a further dialogue with the third
party originators of documents falling within the scope of your request;

•        Final assessment of the documents in light of the comments
received, including of the possibility of granting (partial) access;

•        Redactions of the relevant parts falling under exceptions of
Regulation EC (No) 1049/2001);

•        Preparation of the draft reply;

•        (possible) Consultation of the Legal Service ;

•        Finalisation of the reply at administrative level and formal
approvals of the draft decision;

•        Final check of the documents to be (partially) released (if
applicable) (scanning of the redacted versions, administrative treatment,)
and dispatch of the reply.

The completion of these steps with regard to a very large number of
documents cannot be expected to be completed within the normal time limits
set out in Article 8 of Regulation 1049/2001.

As stated by the EU Courts, the European Commission needs to respect the
principle of proportionality and ensure that the interest of the applicant
for access is balanced against the workload resulting from the processing
of the application for access in order to safeguard the interests of good
administration.

Article 6(3) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 provides that in the event
of an application relating to a very long document or to very large number
of documents, the institution concerned may confer with the applicant
informally, with a view to finding a fair solution.

In accordance with the case law of the EU Courts, a fair solution can only
concern the content or the number of documents applied for, not the
deadline for replying. This means that the scope of your requests must be
reduced in a way that would enable its treatment within the extended
deadline of 15 + 15 working days.

Based on the above-mentioned provision, we would kindly ask you whether
you could narrow down the scope of your request, so as to reduce it to a
more manageable number.

In particular we propose to you the following fair solution: hundreds of
documents were identified as potentially falling under the scope of point
3 of your request and need a lot of time for processing. Therefore, we
propose to reduce the scope of your request to only point 1 and point 2,
so as to handle your request in a manageable manner (and address point 3
in an additional request).

In order to enable us to provide you with a reply as soon as possible, we
would ask you for a swift response to our proposal for a fair solution
within five working days at the latest, by email to us at
[1][DG GROW request email].

If you accept our proposal, please note that the multiple steps of the
review described above will apply.

In the absence of a reply within five working days, we we will
unilaterally restrict the scope of your application to those parts.

Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Yours sincerely,

DG GROW ATD Team     

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[DG GROW request email]

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your reply. We confirm we can limit point three to only communication with PlasticsEurope.

The reply to your request could not be finalized in due time, but please be reassured that we are doing our best to be able to send you the final reply as soon as possible.

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

Kind regards,

DG GROW ATD team

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