Dear European External Action Service,

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:

- The joint demarche sent by the EU Representative in Jerusalem, nine EU Member States represented in Jerusalem and Ramallah and the United Kingdom on 11 February 2022 to Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories ( COGAT) highlighting incidents regarding EU-funded assets that took place from October 2020 to February 2022

- A joint letter from the EU's diplomatic missions in Jerusalem and Ramallah dispatched in November 2022 to Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories detailing incidents of demolitions and confiscations between June and September 2022.

Yours faithfully,

Alexander Fanta
Follow the Money
Rue Auguste Orts 2
1000 Bruxelles

Dear European External Action Service,

Please pass this on to the person who reviews confirmatory applications.

I am filing the following confirmatory application with regards to my access to documents request 'Letters to Israel's COGAT'.

The refusal of access to the documents in question was based on the exceptions for international relations and for public security. I note that the refusal does not clearly delineate between the application of the two exceptions, and appears to conflate their reasoning. While exceptions can be cumulative, I would like to question whether the threshold for a specific and non-hypothetical risk is met for each exception.

In regard to public security, I find the logic of the refusal somewhat contradictory. Action to the detriment of the Palestinian civilian population has already happened, and continues to happen, seemingly unimpeded by European protests. The situation since the October 7 attacks seems to have only accelerated this dynamic. Can the Commission confirm that, specifically, there is an “ongoing diplomatic dialogue aimed at interrupting any illegal action” in the West Bank, and explain how disclosure of said dialogue could hurt Palestinian civilians? It appears that so far, Israeli actions have been undeterred by public disclosure. In the Steinberg case (T-17/10), the General Court established that there was a concrete risk of disclosure as the documents might be used to exert pressure on the relevant persons, even to make threats to their physical or moral integrity. I would like to contend that in the present case, the Commission must examine whether this high standard of the exception is met, namely that disclosure would result in an actual and specific threat. General considerations you give in your reply do not, according to the case law, suffice to deny access.

In regard to the exception for international relations invoked, it is unclear to me how disclosure would “breach the trust” of the Israeli side or international partners. I note that in In ‘t Veld v Council, the ECJ agreed with the General Court that not all internal debates could reveal strategic objectives or be exploited by negotiating partners, and in Besselink v Council, the General Court found that disclosing positions already known by negotiating partners, drafted before any actual negotiation took place, can also not reasonably be said to undermine the EU’s international relations.

Further, I would like to argue for an overriding public interest in disclosure. I believe that the European Commission and the External Action Service should not suppress public knowledge of breaches of international law and/or human rights violations. As the Commission has written in its reply, these “documents make reference to actions such as enforcement measures and obstruction of delivery of humanitarian assistance which have been perpetrated in Areas C and East Jerusalem. Documents 1 and 2 also contain an assessment of the signatory parties as regards the humanitarian and financial consequences of such actions, as well as regarding their unlawfulness against International Humanitarian Law.” Insofar as these assessments by the EU and its member states have so far not been made public, I argue that withholding this knowledge should be construed as an act of obstruction to justice and the rule of law as laid down in Article 2 of the Treaty of the European Union. Access to that information is vital both for public understanding of Israeli actions and EU response in the region, and might also be relevant to ongoing legal processes by the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. Should the EU refuse access, it risks complicity in attempts to obfuscate proper assessment of Israeli actions in the area by international legal institutions.

Yours faithfully,

Alexander Fanta