Operational plans - 2011 to 2014
Dear European Border and Coast Guard Agency,
Under the right of access to documents in the EU treaties, as developed in Regulation 1049/2001, I am requesting the following documents:
From 2011 to 2015, inclusive:
All Operational Plans for all Frontex operations, including:
- Main part of the Operational Plans;
- all annexes; and
- the Handbooks to the Operational Plans.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you need any clarification in regards to any aspect of my request.
Thank you in advance.
Yours faithfully,
Luisa Izuzquiza
Dear Ms Izuzquiza,
We acknowledge receipt of your application CMS-2018-00009-0434 for public access to Frontex documents. Before we are able to process your application, we have to inform you that this and you application (CMS-2018-00009-0433) pertain to a significant number of documents (a preliminary estimate concluded upper several ten thousand pages). We would thus invite you to develop, similar to previous cases, a fair solution in order to reconcile your needs with those of good administration.
Furthermore, by adhering to the principle of good administration and in the interest of transparency, we would like to inform you that the redaction required from Frontex under Article 4 of Regulation (EC) 1049/2001 and the hardcopies that are going to be produced in its course, oblige us to charge 20 cent per page plus postage. Should you agree with these conditions, we would proceed carrying out an approximate calculation of the expected costs and communicate it to you beforehand in order to allow you to make the disbursement of the fees.
We are looking forward to finding a fair solution that would accommodate your needs and enable us to organize. We would in any case welcome a phone conversation in this regard.
Yours sincerely,
Transparency Office
Corporate Governance
Tel: +48 22 205 95 00
Frontex - European Border and Coast Guard Agency
www.frontex.europa.eu
Plac Europejski 6, 00-844 Warsaw, Poland · Tel: +48 22 205 9500 · Fax: +48 22 205 9501
DISCLAIMER: This e-mail message, including any attachments, cannot be construed as automatically constituting any form of commitment by Frontex, unless its contents clearly indicate otherwise. It is intended solely for the use of the addressee(s). Any unauthorised disclosure, use or dissemination, either in whole or in part, is prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately via e-mail and delete the e-mail from your system.
Dear Frontex,
Thank you for your message. While I understand that my application covers a large number of documents, and while I may be willing to find a fair solution (in line with the solutions Frontex has agreed to before, in multiple occasions - for an overview please see: https://www.asktheeu.org/en/body/frontex ) that would enable you to handle the processing of my request in a proportionate manner, I cannot agree to the costs that you are suggesting.
I am absolutely sure that Frontex can find a way to redact the documents falling under the scope of my application without having to produce hard copies.
As a matter of fact, in the year 2018, to adhere to the principle of good administration rather means to find an effective, digital way of redacting documents that does not require the printing and scanning of pages, thus avoiding the unnecessary environmental cost and the loss of time the production of hard copies entail, let alone putting a price to EU citizens' exercise of their fundamental right of access to EU documents.
Wishing that Frontex will reconsider its initial offer, I remain at your disposal for an alternative fair solution.
Yours sincerely,
Luisa Izuzquiza
Dear Ms Izuzquiza,
Thank you for willingness to find a fair solution with regard to your recent applications. As indicated in our email of 20 September 2018, our preliminary estimate concluded that your applications CMS-2018-00009-0434 and CMS-2018-00009-0433 pertain to documents comprising several ten thousands of pages. The retrieval of such amount of documents and their necessary redaction we are required to conduct under Article 4 of Regulation (EC) 1049/2001 would very substantially paralyse the proper working of several units within Frontex, as well as impact on our possibility to exercise our mandate. Moreover, it could deprive other EU citizens or residents from exercising their fundamental right of access to EU documents and jeopardise fair treatment of all applicants which Frontex is committed to.
We would thus kindly invite you to reconsider the scope of your request and/or to indicate those areas of your wide applications you could consider narrowing down.
In regard to the secure redaction as required from Frontex under Article 4 of Regulation (EC) 1049/2001 no adequate solution to avoid the production of hardcopies which can be used on a regular basis is yet to be found.
If the possible modification of your applications would not result in a significant reduction of pages, Frontex would be obliged to charge for those pages that cannot be made available in electronic format.
We are looking forward to hearing from you or to discuss your applications by other means to identify possibilities together with you to determine a fair solution.
Yours sincerely,
Transparency Office
Corporate Governance
Tel: +48 22 205 95 00
Dear Frontex,
Thank you for your message. In view of your arguments, I would like to narrow down the scope of my application as follows:
For the year 2014, all Operational Plans for all Frontex operations, including:
- Main part of the Operational Plans;
- all annexes; and
- the Handbooks to the Operational Plans.
I hope Frontex will find this a suitable solution.
Best regards,
Luisa
Dear Ms Izuzquiza,
Thank you for your proposal. However, the documents identified regarding your applications CMS-2018-00009-0434 concerning Oplans of all 2014 operations and CMS-2018-00009-0433 concerning the evaluation of Frontex operations in 2015 amount to at least 5,500 pages for CMS-2018-00009-0434 and at least 7,500 pages for CMS-2018-00009-0433 (based on a preliminary appraisal). Notwithstanding the fact that we would have to levy the costs for producing and sending the copies for those parts requiring redaction under Article 4 of Regulation (EC) 1049/2001, this amount of pages would still very substantially paralyse the proper working of several units within Frontex, as well as impact on our possibility to exercise our mandate. Moreover, it would deprive other EU citizens or residents from exercising their fundamental right of access to EU documents and jeopardise fair treatment of all applicants which Frontex is committed to.
We are thus inviting you to again to consider a further narrowing down and/or focussing on a specific topic to commonly determine a fair solution.
Yours sincerely,
Transparency Office
Corporate Governance
Tel: +48 22 205 95 00
Frontex - European Border and Coast Guard Agency
www.frontex.europa.eu
Plac Europejski 6, 00-844 Warsaw, Poland · Tel: +48 22 205 9500 · Fax: +48 22 205 9501
DISCLAIMER: This e-mail message, including any attachments, cannot be construed as automatically constituting any form of commitment by Frontex, unless its contents clearly indicate otherwise. It is intended solely for the use of the addressee(s). Any unauthorised disclosure, use or dissemination, either in whole or in part, is prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately via e-mail and delete the e-mail from your system.
Dear Frontex,
Thank you for your message. I would like to further narrow down the scope of my application as follows:
The operational plan for JO Rex 2014, including:
- Main part of the Operational Plan;
- all annexes; and
- the Handbooks to the Operational Plan.
and:
The operational plan for JO EPN Minerva 2014, including:
- Main part of the Operational Plan;
- all annexes; and
- the Handbooks to the Operational Plan.
I hope Frontex will find this a suitable solution.
Best regards,
Luisa Izuzquiza
Dear Ms Izuzquiza,
Thank you for your narrowing down to:
The operational plan for JO Rex 2014, including:
- Main part of the Operational Plan;
- all annexes; and
- the Handbooks to the Operational Plan.
and:
The operational plan for JO EPN Minerva 2014, including:
- Main part of the Operational Plan;
- all annexes; and
- the Handbooks to the Operational Plan.
We hereby register your request, which falls under the regime of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents, we will now forward your email to the responsible Unit and get back to you within 15 working days.
In the meantime, should you have any questions regarding your request or public access to documents process, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Yours sincerely,
Transparency Office
Corporate Governance
Tel: +48 22 205 9500
Dear Ms Izuzquiza,
Please find attached our reply.
Please do not hesitate to contact us for further information.
Yours sincerely,
Transparency Office
Corporate Governance
Tel: +48 22 205 95 00