Commission Decision (EU) 2024/3080

Contents

Article 9General rules of procedure1.Applicants may submit applications for access to documents through the EASE Portal. Alternatively, applicants may send applications by post or e-mail to the Secretariat-General or to the relevant Directorate-General or service.2.Applicants shall provide their name and surname, when submitting the application. If the applicant does not provide their name or surname or provides false information, the application will not be processed.3.Applications submitted via the EASE Portal, by post or by e-mail shall indicate the country of residence and the postal address. In the absence of communication of a postal address, such applications will not be processed.4.Replies and decisions of the Commission to applications submitted via the EASE Portal shall be deemed to be notified when the applicant opens the reply on the Portal. If the applicant does not open the reply or decision within 15 working days after the Secretariat-General, Directorate-General or service sent it, the reply or decision shall be deemed to be notified on the 16th working day as of the date when it was sent.5.Replies and decisions to applications submitted outside of the EASE Portal shall be sent by e-mail, except when an applicant specifically requested a hard copy version, or submitted their application by letter, or when the Secretariat-General, Directorate-General or service has a particular reason to send a reply or decision by registered mail. Any communication of a reply or decision by e-mail shall include an explicit request for an acknowledgment of receipt from the applicants. Should applicants fail to acknowledge receipt after five working days, a reminder shall be sent, except where the applicant has already publicly acknowledged receipt of the reply or decision. Where an electronically transmitted reply or decision has not been acknowledged, a notification by registered mail shall take place.6.The temporal and material scope of the application shall be clearly defined. If an application is imprecise, as referred to in Article 6(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001, the applicant shall be invited to provide additional information making it possible to identify the documents requested. The deadline for the reply shall start to run once the information, enabling the scope of the application to be defined and the documents to be identified, is received.The ‘cut-off’ date, or date up until when documents are identified, shall be defined as the date of registration of the initial application.7.The service in charge shall assist the applicant, for example by providing information on the use of public registers of documents. If within seven working days from sending the clarification request, the applicant has not provided additional information enabling the requested documents to be identified, the application shall be considered as withdrawn and the applicant will be informed accordingly.8.Requests for information, other than environmental information, fall outside the scope of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 and shall be handled by the competent service of the Commission under its Code of Good Administrative Behaviour. After informing the applicant, the competent service of the Commission may requalify an application submitted under Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 as a request for information and handle it accordingly, unless the applicant expressly objects to and provides grounds against such a requalification.9.In accordance with Article 6(3) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001, the service in charge may confer informally with the applicant with a view to finding a fair solution enabling the service in charge to deal with voluminous or wide-scope applications within the statutory time limits. The fair solution can concern only the number and content of the documents requested, not the time limits laid down in Articles 7 and 8 of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001. Those time limits may not be disregarded in order to provide deferred replies in batches, even as per the applicant’s request. Where a fair solution cannot be reached, the service in charge may unilaterally reduce the scope of the application, after having genuinely studied all alternative options and explained in detail in its decision the reasons why those various options would involve an unreasonable workload or be less favourable to the applicant.10.In accordance with Article 2 of Regulation 1/58^note, the Secretariat-General, the Directorate-General or service shall reply to applications for access to documents in the language of the application, provided it was written in one of the official Union languages. Exceptionally, having obtained the express prior agreement of the applicant, the Directorate-General or service may reply in another language than the one used in the application for access in order to ensure the swiftest processing of the application.11.Whereas the Commission strives to issue a maximum number of documents in all official languages of the Union, where the requested linguistic version of a document does not exist, the Secretariat-General, the Directorate-General or service is not required to create it. It shall provide the applicant with the existing official linguistic version. Where there are several official linguistic versions other than the requested one, the Secretariat-General, the Directorate-General or service shall invite the applicant to indicate its preferred existing alternative.12.Following the full or partial refusal of access to documents, the applicant has the right to file a new application for access to the same document(s) at a later stage. This new application will be handled as a new initial application, provided that there have been relevant changes in the legal and/or factual circumstances warranting possible wider access since the first initial reply or confirmatory decision was adopted. Otherwise, the earlier initial or confirmatory decision shall be confirmed with reference to the fact that the factual and legal circumstances have not changed.13.In accordance with its Code of Good Administrative Behaviour, the Commission may reserve the right to discontinue further exchanges of correspondence which can reasonably be regarded as repetitive.14.In exceptional circumstances, the relevant Directorate-General or service shall refuse to handle an application for access to documents where it is made in clear abuse of the right of access to documents. The refusal shall state the reasons substantiating this conclusion, including, where applicable, the reasons that led to conclude that the objective of the applicant was to paralyse the proper functioning of the institution and that the workload relating to the disclosure of the documents requested is unreasonable and disproportionate as compared to the objectives set by Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001.