Dear Sir/Madam,

under the right of access to documents in the EU treaties, as developed in Regulation 1049/2001, we are requesting the following documents:

- a list of meetings of DG Energy officials/representatives (excluding the European Commissioner, his Cabinet and the Director-General) and interest representatives (including companies, consultancies and law firms, trade/business/professional associations, think tanks and NGOs) between December 1st 2014 and today.

We would like the list to include the following information:
the date of the meeting,
which companies/organisations were present at the meeting,
names of the lobbyist(s) that were present,
the sector they represented (business, NGOs, academia, think tanks),
the name and job title of the European Commission officials that were present (e.g. head of unit, etc.),
the issues discussed, if possible in sufficient detail so as to identify the dossiers or policy initiatives covered.

We are requesting a list in order to avoid submitting a much broader request for minutes and other reports of meetings with interest representatives, which could require a large amount of effort from the Commission's side. In our view there is clearly a high public interest in transparency over the Commission's interactions with outside interest groups.

Thank you in advance.

Yours sincerely,

Nicola Freeman, on behalf of the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation (ALTER-EU)
Fabian Flues (Friends of the Earth Europe)

Dear DG Energy,

Further to my request, please note that my postal address is:

Mundo B, Rue d'Edimbourg 26, B-1050 Brussels

Yours faithfully,

Nicola Freeman

Dear Energy,

I have yet to hear from you about my access to documents request http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/meeti...

Yours faithfully,

Nicola Freeman

Dear Energy,

I sent an access to EU documents request on July 16, and have still yet to receive a reply.

Please can you register my request and process it as soon as possible?

Yours faithfully,

Nicola Freeman

Dear Energy,

This is a confirmatory application to challenge the response to my request (GestDem 2015/5067) received on 25 September 2015 by email, on a list of meetings of DG Energy officials/representatives (excluding the European Commissioner, his Cabinet and the
Director-General) and interest representatives (including companies, consultancies and law firms, trade/business/professional
associations, think tanks and NGOs) between December 1st 2014 and today.

I would like to appeal your decision that DG ENER does not hold a document or documents containing this information.

Public access to the document(s) requested should be made possible following the provisions within the EU Treaties and particularly Article 15 of TFEU stating that “EU institutions, bodies, offices and agencies shall conduct their work as openly as possible”, in order to promote good governance and ensure participation of civil society.

This is further developed by Regulation 1049/2001 in order to “bring about greater openness in the work of the institutions” as well as “promote good administrative practice on access to documents.”

To the extent therefore, that a narrow interpretation of the request does not uncover a specific document containing the information requested, the institution should apply a wider interpretation in order to find out if the information is available through disclosure of multiple documents, in order to satisfy its obligations to conduct its work as openly as possible. This appears not to have been done by DG ENER.

It is noted also as part of this confirmatory application, that a request for the same information was sent to DG FISMA, which has disclosed a document containing a list of meetings, available here: http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/meeti...
It therefore appears unlikely that DG ENER would not be able to process the same request and provide access to a document or documents containing the information requested, in particular as the request has a narrower scope than the one sent to DG FISMA.

As stated in our original request, we deliberately asked for a list of meetings in order to avoid submitting a much broader request for minutes and other reports of meetings with interest representatives, which could require a large amount of effort from the Commission's side. In our view there is clearly a high public interest in transparency over the Commission's interactions with outside interest groups.

DG ENER should reverse its decision, and the Directorate General should look into providing the information requested, if not contained in one document, then by whatever means possible in order to ensure the widest possible access.

I look forward to your decision following this confirmatory application.

Nicola Freeman