Private Access to documents request: Recent correpondence between DG Energy and US gas companies
Dear Sir or Madam,
Referring to Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 on public access to EU documents and to the 'Aarhus Convention' I would herewith like to ask for access to the following:
All documents—including but not limited to correspondence, emails, minutes, notes (hand written or electronic), audio or video recordings, verbatim reports, operational conclusions, lines to take, briefings, and presentations—between 8 February 2022 and today 21st March 2022, between DG ENER staff and staff or representatives of US gas companies Cheniere, Tellurian or Sempra or US industry groups LNG Allies and the American Petroleum Institute
In consideration of the environment and the current circumstances with the COVID pandemic I would prefer to receive documents electronically.
I would like to make clear I prefer you produce the documents on a rolling basis. At no point should the Commission's search for—or deliberations concerning—certain documents delay the production of others that the Commission has already retrieved and elected to produce.
Should my request be denied wholly or partially, please explain the denial or all deletions referring to specific exemptions in the regulation. Also I would expect the partial release of documents in case of partial exemption according to article 4.6. I reserve the right to appeal.
Please confirm having received this application. I look forward to your reply within 15 business days, according to the regulation.
If anything is unclear or would benefit from further discussion please do not hesitate to contact me by email or on +44 7525 592 738. My address for any written correspondence necessary is Barnaby Pace, Global Witness, Rue Belliard 53, 1000, Bruxelles, Belgique.
Thank you for your assistance.
Yours sincerely
Barnaby Pace
Your message has been received by the Transparency Unit of the
Secretariat-General of the European Commission.
Requests for public access to documents are treated on the basis of
[1]Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 of 30 May 2001 regarding public access to
European Parliament, Council and Commission documents.
The Secretariat-General will reply to your request within 15 working days
upon registration of your request and will duly inform you of the
registration of the request (or of any additional information to be
provided in view of its registration and/or treatment).
L’unité «Transparence» du secrétariat général de la Commission européenne
a bien reçu votre message.
Les demandes d’accès du public aux documents sont traitées sur la base du
[2]règlement (CE) n° 1049/2001 du 30 mai 2001 relatif à l’accès du public
aux documents du Parlement européen, du Conseil et de la Commission.
Le secrétariat général répondra à votre demande dans un délai de 15 jours
ouvrables à compter de la date d’enregistrement de votre demande, et vous
informera de cet enregistrement (ou vous indiquera toute information
supplémentaire à fournir en vue de l'enregistrement et/ou du traitement de
votre demande).
Ihre Nachricht ist beim Referat „Transparenz“ des Generalsekretariats der
Europäischen Kommission eingegangen.
Anträge auf Zugang zu Dokumenten werden auf der Grundlage der
[3]Verordnung (EG) Nr. 1049/2001 vom 30. Mai 2001 über den Zugang der
Öffentlichkeit zu Dokumenten des Europäischen Parlaments, des Rates und
der Kommission behandelt.
Das Generalsekretariat beantwortet Ihre Anfrage innerhalb von
15 Arbeitstagen nach deren Registrierung und wird Sie über die
Registrierung Ihres Antrags (oder die Notwendigkeit weiterer Informationen
im Hinblick auf dessen Registrierung und/oder Bearbeitung) unterrichten.
References
Visible links
1. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/...
2. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/...
3. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/...
Dear Sir,
Thank you for your e-mail of 21/03/2022. We hereby acknowledge receipt of
your application for access to documents, which was registered on
21/03/2022 under reference number GESTDEM 2022/1604.
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 11/04/2022. 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 AsktheEU.org 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 (cr)
SG.C.1
Transparency
Dear Mr Pace,
We refer to your e-mail of 21 March 2022, in which you make a request for
access to documents, registered on the 21 of March under the above
mentioned reference number. Your application is currently being handled.
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 11
April 2022.
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 with 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 05 May 2022.
We apologize for this delay and for any inconvenience this may cause.
Yours faithfully,
[1]cid:image001.png@01D03ECB.9741CEE0
European Commission
DG Energy
DG ENERGY – Access to documents team
Email: [2][email address]
References
Visible links
2. mailto:[email address]
Dear [email address],
I have still not received a full response to this request even though it is extremely overdue and the deadline provided in your previous holding email passed several weeks ago. Could you provide an update?
Yours sincerely,
Barnaby Pace
Dear Energy,
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 'Private Access to documents request: Recent correpondence between DG Energy and US gas companies'.
The deadline for the departments response is now long overdue, by law under all circumstances the department should have responded by now.
Yours faithfully,
Barnaby Pace
Dear Sir,
Thank you for your email dated 20/06/2022 by which you request, pursuant
to Regulation No 1049/2001 regarding public access to European Parliament,
Council and Commission documents, a review of the position taken by DG
ENER in reply to your initial application GESTDEM 2022/1604.
We hereby acknowledge receipt of your confirmatory application for access
to documents which was registered on 20/06/2022 (Ares(2022)4531883).
Your application will be handled within 15 working days (11/07/2022). In
case this time limit needs to be extended, you will be informed in due
course.
Please be informed that the answer to your confirmatory application is a
formal Commission decision that will be notified to you by express
delivery. Thank you for providing your contact phone number, so that the
external delivery service can contact you in case of absence.
Please note that the Commission will not use your phone number for any
other purpose than for informing the delivery service, and that it will
delete it immediately thereafter.
Yours faithfully,
Access to documents team (cr)
SG.C.1
Transparency
Link: [1]File-List
Link: [2]Edit-Time-Data
Link: [3]themeData
Link: [4]colorSchemeMapping
[5]Your confirmatory application for access to documents under Regulation
(EC) No 1049/2001 - GESTDEM 2022/1604 - 1st holding letter -
Ares(2022)5038436 (Please use this link only if you are an Ares user –
Svp, utilisez ce lien exclusivement si vous êtes un(e) utilisateur d’Ares)
Dear Mr Pace,
I refer to your email of 20 June 2022, registered on the same day, by
which you submit a confirmatory application in accordance with Article
7(4) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 regarding public access to European
Parliament, Council and Commission documents ("Regulation (EC) No
1049/2001"), registered under reference number above.
Your confirmatory application is currently being handled. Unfortunately,
we have not yet been able to gather all the elements needed to carry out a
full analysis of your request and to take a final decision. Therefore, we
are not in a position to reply to your confirmatory request within the
prescribed time limit which expires on 11 July 2022. Consequently, we have
to extend this period by another 15 working days in accordance with
Article 8(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001. The new deadline expires on
2 August 2022. However, I can assure you that we are doing our utmost to
provide you with a final reply within the next 15 working days.
I regret this additional delay and sincerely apologise for any
inconvenience this may cause.
Yours sincerely,
Mariusz Daca, Ph.D.
Deputy Head of Unit
European Commission
Secretariat General
Unit C.1 (Transparency, Document Management and Access to Documents)
References
Visible links
1. file:///tmp/cid:filelist.xml@01D8951E.E7952B60
2. file:///tmp/cid:editdata.mso
3. file:///tmp/~~themedata~~
4. file:///tmp/~~colorschememapping~~
5. https://webgate.ec.testa.eu/Ares/documen...
Dear SG ACCES DOCUMENTS,
I note that the extended deadline for this confirmatory application has now passed by several weeks and I have received no further response. Could you please provide an urgent update?
Yours sincerely,
Barnaby Pace
Your message has been received by the Transparency Unit of the
Secretariat-General of the European Commission.
Requests for public access to documents are treated on the basis of
[1]Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 of 30 May 2001 regarding public access to
European Parliament, Council and Commission documents.
The Secretariat-General will reply to your request within 15 working days
upon registration of your request and will duly inform you of the
registration of the request (or of any additional information to be
provided in view of its registration and/or treatment).
L’unité «Transparence» du secrétariat général de la Commission européenne
a bien reçu votre message.
Les demandes d’accès du public aux documents sont traitées sur la base du
[2]règlement (CE) n° 1049/2001 du 30 mai 2001 relatif à l’accès du public
aux documents du Parlement européen, du Conseil et de la Commission.
Le secrétariat général répondra à votre demande dans un délai de 15 jours
ouvrables à compter de la date d’enregistrement de votre demande, et vous
informera de cet enregistrement (ou vous indiquera toute information
supplémentaire à fournir en vue de l'enregistrement et/ou du traitement de
votre demande).
Ihre Nachricht ist beim Referat „Transparenz“ des Generalsekretariats der
Europäischen Kommission eingegangen.
Anträge auf Zugang zu Dokumenten werden auf der Grundlage der
[3]Verordnung (EG) Nr. 1049/2001 vom 30. Mai 2001 über den Zugang der
Öffentlichkeit zu Dokumenten des Europäischen Parlaments, des Rates und
der Kommission behandelt.
Das Generalsekretariat beantwortet Ihre Anfrage innerhalb von
15 Arbeitstagen nach deren Registrierung und wird Sie über die
Registrierung Ihres Antrags (oder die Notwendigkeit weiterer Informationen
im Hinblick auf dessen Registrierung und/oder Bearbeitung) unterrichten.
References
Visible links
1. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/...
2. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/...
3. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/...
Link: [1]File-List
Link: [2]Edit-Time-Data
Link: [3]themeData
Link: [4]colorSchemeMapping
[5]Your confirmatory applications for access to documents - GESTDEM
2022/1579 & 2022/1604 - Ares(2022)5876734 (Please use this link only if
you are an Ares user – Svp, utilisez ce lien exclusivement si vous êtes
un(e) utilisateur d’Ares)
Dear Mr Pace,
Thank you for your e-mails.
We sincerely apologize for the failure to reply within the statutory time
limit. We would like to confirm that the internal consultations in
relation to your application are fully ongoing. Therefore, we still cannot
commit to a specific time frame within when the decision will be adopted.
However, we would like to assure you that we are doing our utmost to
provide you with a reply as soon as possible.
Please accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience this delay may
cause to you and thank you for your understanding.
Kind regards,
ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS TEAM
European Commission
Secretariat-General
SG C.1 – Transparency, Document Management & Access to Documents
[6][email address]
References
Visible links
1. file:///tmp/cid:filelist.xml@01D8B6E5.0EC95070
2. file:///tmp/cid:editdata.mso
3. file:///tmp/~~themedata~~
4. file:///tmp/~~colorschememapping~~
5. https://webgate.ec.testa.eu/Ares/documen...
6. mailto:[email address]
Link: [1]File-List
Link: [2]themeData
Link: [3]colorSchemeMapping
[4]Your request to access to documents - EASE 2022/1604 - reply to the
initial request - Ares(2022)6940687 (Please use this link only if you are
an Ares user – Svp, utilisez ce lien exclusivement si vous êtes un(e)
utilisateur d’Ares)
Dear Mr Pace,
We refer to your e-mail of 21/03/2022, in which you make a request for
access to documents, registered on 21/03/2022 under the above mentioned
reference number.
Please find attach the reply to your initial request.
Kind regards,
DG Energy
DG ENERGY – Access to Documents Team
Email: [5][email address]
References
Visible links
1. file:///tmp/cid:filelist.xml@01D8DA49.ECDE9EB0
2. file:///tmp/~~themedata~~
3. file:///tmp/~~colorschememapping~~
4. https://webgate.ec.testa.eu/Ares/documen...
5. mailto:[email address]
Dear Mr Pace,
Please find attached an advance copy of the reply to your confirmatory
request for access to documents registered under the number GESTDEM
2022/1604.
Yours sincerely,
ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS TEAM (cr)
European Commission
Secretariat-General
SG C.1
[1][email address]
References
Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]