Request for documents on assessments and contacts related to nicotine pouches or other harm reduction products evaluated as food-related or consumer products
Dear European Food Safety Authority,
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:
I request access to all documents (including scientific opinions, assessments, correspondence, meeting minutes, and internal notes) from 1 January 2021 to the present, concerning:
– Any assessment or evaluation of nicotine pouches, or other so-called “harm reduction” products, in the context of food safety, consumer products, or related health risks.
– Contacts or correspondence with tobacco companies, their representatives, or industry-funded platforms regarding such products.
– Internal discussions on whether these products fall under EFSA’s remit or require coordination with DG SANTE or other services.
I would like the search to cover the period from 1 January 2021 to the present.
If parts of the requested documents are covered by exceptions under Regulation 1049/2001, I kindly ask for partial access to be granted to the remaining parts. I am also open to receiving the documents in electronic format.
Thank you for your consideration of this request.
Yours faithfully,
Irene van den Berg
Linker Rottekade 292, unit 1.7
3034 CV Rotterdam
The Netherlands
Dear Irene van den Berg,
EFSA hereby acknowledges receipt of your application for public access to
documents (PAD). Your PAD application has been registered and will be
processed in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 (the “PAD
Regulation”). We will revert to you within 15 working days from the date
of registration of your PAD application.
PAD Application Summary
PAD Number: 00021252
Contact Name:
Subject: " Request for documents on assessments and contacts related to
nicotine pouches or other harm reduction products evaluated as
food-related or consumer products"
Request: "
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Dear Ms van den Berg,
I hereby acknowledge receipt of your e-mail of 29 September 2025, by means
of which you requested access to:
“all documents (including scientific opinions, assessments,
correspondence, meeting minutes, and internal notes) from 1 January 2021
to the present, concerning:
– Any assessment or evaluation of nicotine pouches, or other so-called
“harm reduction” products, in the context of food safety, consumer
products, or related health risks.
– Contacts or correspondence with tobacco companies, their
representatives, or industry-funded platforms regarding such products.
– Internal discussions on whether these products fall under EFSA’s remit
or require coordination with DG SANTE or other services.
I would like the search to cover the period from 1 January 2021 to the
present.”
In addition, you highlight that:
“If parts of the requested documents are covered by exceptions under
Regulation 1049/2001, I kindly ask for partial access to be granted to the
remaining parts. I am also open to receiving the documents in electronic
format.”
Your application for public access to documents (PAD) has been registered
as PAD 2025/201 (00021252) and is being processed as quickly as possible
in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 regarding public access to
documents (hereinafter “the PAD Regulation”).
We will come back to you by 20 October 2025 at the latest.
We would like to inform you that the AsktheEU.org website you have used
for submitting your request is a third-party platform, with no link to the
institutions, agencies and bodies of the EU, including EFSA. Consequently,
EFSA cannot be held liable for any errors of any kind occurring as a
result of the use of this platform. Likewise, we would ask you to provide
us with an alternative e-mail address to be used for the further
processing of your application for access to documents.
Additionally, please note that the third party running the AsktheEU.org
website is responsible for the processing of your personal data by means
of this platform. For further information, including on the way the third
party addresses your rights in the light of applicable data protection
legislation, please refer to the third party’s privacy policy. From our
experience with the way the platform operates, we understand that the
content of public access to documents requesters correspondence with EFSA
is usually published on the platform, including any personal data which
may be contained therein (e.g. private postal addresses). Please contact
us directly should you not wish your correspondence with EFSA to be
published on the AsktheEU.org platform. In the event that such a
communication is received from you, EFSA will then redirect all future
electronic correspondence to your private e-mail address only.
Please also be aware that Article 16 of the PAD Regulation regarding
public access to documents provides that this legal framework is
applicable without prejudice to any existing rules on copyright which may
limit a third party's right to reproduce or exploit released documents.
Finally, note that EFSA is using an online tool for processing public
access to documents application which can be accessed via the Connect.EFSA
platform (“The PAD Tool”). In order to ensure a thorough monitoring of PAD
applications being processed by EFSA, your PAD application would need to
be included in this PAD tool. For this purpose we ask you to communicate
to us your personal e-mail address. Afterwards, you may receive an e-mail
of notification after we have included your application in this tool and
future communications with you will be sent via the PAD Tool. Should you
be interested in using it for eventual future PAD applications, we highly
recommend that you register in the system to better follow the processing
of your PAD applications and other queries you may submit to EFSA. Should
you wish to submit a new PAD application, please select “public access to
documents” in the ‘area’ box of the online form.
Yours sincerely,
EFSA's Public Access to Documents team
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Public Access to Documents
Legal Affairs Services
[8][email address]
[9]www.efsa.europa.eu
This e-mail and its attachments is intended for the recipient(s) named in
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Dear Ms van der Berg,
Further to our previous message, by means of which we acknowledged receipt of your
application for access to documents with EFSA’s reference PAD 2025/201 (00021252), we
would like to reiterate that your application is being processed as quickly as possible
in accordance with the provisions of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 on public access to
documents. However, we regret to inform you that EFSA is still gathering all the
necessary elements to reply to your PAD application, and we therefore have to extend the
deadline by 15 working days in accordance with Article 7(3) of Regulation (EC) No
1049/2001. We will revert to you as soon as possible, and by 10 November 2025 at the
latest.
We further kindly ask you to acknowledge the receipt of the message dated 30 September
2025 by means of which we asked you, for the reasons stated therein, to provide us with
your private e-mail address. To do so, please write to EFSA’s functional mailbox
dedicated to public access to documents, which can be found on page 18 of the Guidelines:
[2]https://www.efsa.europa.eu/sites/default...
Yours sincerely,
EFSA Public Access to Documents Team
Legal Affairs Services
This e-mail and its attachments is intended for the recipient(s) named in the message. If
you are not an intended recipient, please let the sender know immediately. Any disclosure
or copying of the message content is unauthorised and may be unlawful if you are not the
intended recipient.
--------------- Original Message
Dear Irene van den Berg,
Further to our previous e-mail, by means of which we acknowledged receipt of your application for
access to documents with EFSA's reference [PAD request number generated by Salesforce], we would
like to reiterate that your application is being processed as quickly as possible in accordance
with the provisions of Regulation (EC) No
1049/2001<https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/...>
on public access to documents.
However, we regret to inform you that we have to extend the deadline in accordance with Article
7(3) or Article 8(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001, as applicable, since we are still gathering
the elements for finalising the processing your PAD application.
We will reply to your PAD application as soon as possible, and by 11/10/2025 at the latest.
Yours sincerely,
EFSA Public Access to Documents team
Legal Affairs Services
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Dear Ms van den Berg,
Please find the letter of reply referenced 36362985 from Ms Luisa Venier
for EFSA Public Access to Documents at the following link:
[2]pdf icon[3] EFSA Ref. out 36362985_PAD 2025_201 (00021252)_ Reply.pdf
I wish you a good reception of this letter.
Yours sincerely,
Alessandra DI NUNZIO
Legal Officer
EFSA Public Access to Documents
Legal Affairs Services
References
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2. https://efsa815-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/...
3. https://efsa815-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/...
Dear EFSA Public Access to Documents,
Thank you for your message. The sharing links do not work on my side. When I enter my email address, I receive the following notification: “Sorry, this email address isn’t associated with this secure link. Please contact the person who shared it with you.”
Could you please provide the documents in another way?
Yours sincerely,
Irene van den Berg
Dear Ms van den Berg,
We are trying to solve the technical issue you mention in the communication below. However, in order to facilitate the proper transmission of EFSA's reply of 10 November 2025, we would be grateful if you could please provide us an alternative e-mail address. Please write to [email address].
Yours sincerely,
Alessandra DI NUNZIO
Legal Officer
EFSA Public Access to Documents
Legal Affairs Services
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Dear Ms van den Berg,
Since we have not received any reply from you, please find attached letter
of reply referenced 36362985.
I wish you a good reception of this letter.
Yours sincerely,
Alessandra DI NUNZIO
Legal Officer
EFSA Public Access to Documents
Legal Affairs Services
For replying to this e-mail, please make sure you press “Reply” from your
e-mail management tool (Outlook, Gmail, etc)
Please make sure you copy the EFSA
mailbox [2][email address] in all your
communications with EFSA.
[3]logo2025 [4]insta [5]yt [6]linkedin [7]twitter
Alessandra Di Nunzio
Public Access to Documents
Legal Affairs Services
[8][email address]
[9]www.efsa.europa.eu
This e-mail and its attachments is intended for the recipient(s) named in
the message. If you are not an intended recipient, please let the sender
know immediately. Any disclosure or copying of the message content is
unauthorised and may be unlawful if you are not the intended recipient.
Dear Ms Venier,
Thank you for your reply and for processing my request (PAD 2025/201).
Before deciding whether to submit a confirmatory application, I would be grateful if you could clarify how the internal verification was carried out. My request covers a broad range of possible documents, including internal notes, email correspondence, meeting minutes, and exchanges with DG SANTE or other Commission services concerning nicotine pouches or similar products in the context of food safety or consumer-product risks.
Could you please confirm:
– which EFSA units or directorates were consulted during the search;
– whether searches were carried out in email archives, meeting registries, or internal coordination systems; and
– whether any requests, questions or communications from Commission services or Member States concerning nicotine pouches have been registered since 2021.
Given the increasing regulatory attention to nicotine pouches in several Member States, it would be unexpected if EFSA had not received or generated any internal material at all on this topic. Any clarification you can provide would be very helpful.
As the deadline for a possible confirmatory application is 15 working days, I would appreciate your reply at your earliest convenience.
Kind regards,
Irene van den Berg