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 or Madam,

We are writing to you concerning your request for access to documents sent
on 24/03/2026 and registered on 24/03/2026 under case number 2026/1681.

Since you have not indicated your postal address, we are not able to start
handling your request. The 15 working days to reply to your request will
start running only when you send us your postal address.

You can send your postal address by replying to this e-mail. If we do not
receive your reply we may close this case.

Please note that you can submit a request for access to Commission
documents via the portal [1]'Request a Commission document', which does
not require you to indicate your postal address.

Why do we need your personal postal address?

Since 1 April 2014, the submission of a postal address became a mandatory
feature when submitting an application for access to Commission documents
via an e-mail. We would like to explain why we need your postal address in
order to register and handle your application for access to documents when
submitted via e-mail:

• Firstly, to obtain legal certainty as regards the date you received
the European Commission reply to your application for public access to
documents. Article 297 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the
European Union (TFEU) states that 'decisions which specify to whom
they are addressed, shall be notified to those to whom they are
addressed and shall take effect upon such notification.' In line with
this provision, if the Commission does not grant full access to the
requested documents, it notifies the reply to the applicant via
registered mail with acknowledgement of receipt or via delivery
service. This requires an indication of a valid postal address by the
applicant;
• Secondly, to apply correctly the [2]Data Protection Regulation (EU)
2018/1725. Knowing whether the applicant is an EU resident (or not) is
necessary for deciding which conditions shall apply for the
transmissions of personal data to applicants for access to documents.
These conditions are not the same for recipients established in the
Union and for recipients in third countries. As the vast majority of
the documents requested contain personal data, the Commission cannot
ensure the correct application of the data protection rules in the
absence of a postal address;
• Thirdly, to apply correctly [3]Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001. Article
4(1)(b) of that Regulation refers to the protection of the privacy and
integrity of the individual and has to be applied in line with the
Data Protection Regulation;
• Fourthly, to protect the interest of other citizens and safeguard the
principle of good administration. The Commission has to treat all
citizens equally by ensuring that the legal framework for public
access to documents is respected. For example, it has to verify
whether Article 6(3) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 is being evaded
by introducing several requests under different identities. Indeed, in
its Ryanair judgment ([4]EU:T:2010:511), the General Court confirmed
that Article 6(3) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 cannot be evaded by
splitting an application into several, seemingly separate, parts. In
addition, the Commission has to make sure that the legal framework is
respected and the right of access to documents is not abused by making
requests under an invented identity.

The considerations above show that the request for and the consequent
processing of the applicant's postal address is not only appropriate, but
also strictly necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the
public interest within the meaning of Article 5(1)(a) of Data Protection
Regulation, namely providing a smooth and effective access to documents.

Yours faithfully,

Secretariat-General - Access to Documents
European Commission

References

Visible links
1. https://www.ec.europa.eu/transparency/do...
2. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/...
3. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/...
4. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/...

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 or Madam,

We hereby acknowledge the receipt of your request for access to documents
sent on 24/03/2026 and registered on 24/03/2026 under the case number
2026/1681.

We will handle your request within 15 working days as of the date of
registration. The time-limit expires on 17/04/2026. 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,

Secretariat-General - Access to Documents
European Commission

References

Visible links
1. https://ec.europa.eu/info/principles-and...

Dear Mr. Mocombe,

We refer to your request for access to Commission documents attached,
registered on 24 March in DG R&I with reference number in subject.

Given the wide scope of your request and the time-period indicated, the
identification of the requested documents required and extensive search
both in DG R&I and in the Commission Historical Archives, which took
longer than expected. We apologize for any inconvenience that this delay
may have caused.

Following our thorough search, we have retrieved 380 files in the database
of the Commission historical archives, containing approximately 800
documents, including correspondence, invitations, draft agendas of
meetings, studies, etc. Given such a high number of documents, the
concrete and individual assessment of these documents - including their
identification from the archive, the review of their content under the
object of your request, the consultations of any third party involved,
their redaction and transmission with the final reply - would inevitably
add further, considerable delay to the handling of your request. In
addition, it would take one staff member working full time on this request
only for approximately 20 working days, which would add further
administrative burden for the Commission services.

This being said, to safeguard and balance your right of access against the
workload on the Commission resources resulting from the processing of your
application, we propose, as foreseen in Article 6(3) of Regulation
1049/2001 for this type of cases, to reduce the scope of your request to
those documents that mostly meet your interest and that we could treat
within a reasonable time, so as to allow us to provide you with a final
reply as soon as possible. 

To assist you, we have extracted the list of the files identified with all
the information we could retrieve, namely their subjects, dates and number
of documents contained in each of them, for your convenience.

Based on this list, we would be grateful if you could select, within the
next 5 working days, those files grouping a maximum of 30 documents, which
is the number we can reasonably handle, depending on their complexity,
within 30 working days. Please note that, due to their registration, many
of them consist in correspondence repeated with the same subject only
provided to different recipients.

Once we receive your final reply, we will proceed with the assessment of
the documents you selected and provide you with a decision as soon as
possible and, in any case, within the 30 working days.

Kind regards,

R&I Access to documents

European Commission

DG Research and Innovation

1049 Brussels/Belgium

[1][email address]

[2]https://ec.europa.eu/research

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
2. https://ec.europa.eu/research

Dear Mr. Macombe,

Thank you for your reply.

From your message, we understand that you selected 35 files from our list, the first 30 with higher priority.

Please note that, based on the number of documents contained in them (column on the right included in the list we shared), the first 30 files contain 55 documents alone, with additional 6 from the 5 files with lower priority.

As explained in our proposal, the number of documents we can reasonably handle within the maximum time limit provided by Regulation 1049/2001 is 30. This means that we are not able to handle the documents you selected, not even those with higher priority alone, which still exceed this number.

Because of this, as mentioned in our correspondence, we would ask you to please select the files grouping a maximum of 30 documents. In order to start assessing them as soon as possible, to provide you with a reply within a reasonable time, we would be grateful if you could do so by the end of the week.

Please feel free to contact us should you have any doubt we may help you with.

Kind regards,

R&I Access to documents

show quoted sections

dear Mr. Mocombe,

Please find attached a message concerning your request for access to
Commission documents registered under the above case number 2026/1681.

Please acknowledge the receipt of this message by return email.

Kind regards,

R&I Access to documents