Meetings with Rio Tinto
Dear Trade,
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:
1) All incoming or outgoing correspondence (including emails and sms-messages, sent or received) between DG TRADE officials (including the Commissioner and Cabinet members) and employees or representatives of Rio Tinto, from 1st December 2024 until 25th June 2025.
2) Detailed minutes and any other reports of meetings between DG TRADE officials (including the Commissioner and Cabinet members) and employees or representatives of Rio Tinto, from 1st December 2024 until 25th June 2025.
Should my request be denied wholly or partially, please explain the denial or all deletions referring to specific exemptions in the regulation. Also I expect the partial release of documents, in case of partial exemption according to article 4.6.
Do not hesitate to get back to me should you need any further information which could facilitate your research. My postal address hereby:
Hans Wetzels
Rue du Noyer 2-III
1030, Schaerbeek
Belgium
Thank you for your assistance.
Yours faithfully,
Hans Wetzels
Follow the Money
Dear Sir or Madam,
We hereby acknowledge the receipt of your request for access to documents
sent on 26/06/2025 and registered on 27/06/2025 under the case number
2025/3346.
We will handle your request within 15 working days as of the date of
registration. The time-limit expires on 18/07/2025. We will let you know
if we need to extend this time limit for additional 15 working days.
To find more information on how we process your personal data, please see
[1]the privacy statement.
Yours faithfully,
Directorate-General for Trade and Economic Security - Access to Documents
European Commission
References
Visible links
1. https://ec.europa.eu/info/principles-and...
Dear Mr Wetzels,
We refer to your email application for public access to documents of 26
June 2025, registered on 27 June 2025 under the EASE reference number
2025/3346.
Your application is currently being handled and the reply to it should be
finalised very soon.
However, we will not be in a position to complete the handling of your
application within the time limit of 15 working days, which expires on 18
July 2025, i.e. today.
An extended time limit is needed as the application concerns documents
held by different Services, which must be consulted.
Therefore, we have to extend the time limit by 15 working days in
accordance with Article 7(3) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 regarding
public access to documents.
The new time limit expires on 08 August 2025.
We apologise for this delay and for any inconvenience this may cause.
Yours sincerely,
DG TRADE Access to Documents Team
European Commission
Directorate General for Trade
Unit R3 – Transparency, Civil Society and Communications
CHAR
1049 Brussels
Belgium
Dear Trade,
Since the extended deadline for this request has also come and passed: do you have any news when I can expect the requested documents?
Yours faithfully,
Hans Wetzels
Dear Mr Wetzels,
Please find attached the reply to your initial request for public access
to Commission documents registered under the above case number EASE
2025/3346.
Kindly acknowledge the receipt of this message by return email. Thank you
very much in advance!
Kind regards,
DG TRADE Public Access to Documents Team