Dear Mr R.,

On 8 July 1998, you submitted a complaint against the European Commission which concerned the Commission's refusal to provide you with certain information in relation to complaint P/93/4490/UK that you had lodged with the Commission.

On 23 November 2000, and following an in-depth inquiry into your complaint, I submitted a special report to the European Parliament, in conformity with Article 3 (7) of the Statute of the European Ombudsman. A copy of this special report was sent to the Commission. In this special report I recommended that the Commission should inform you of the names of the delegates of the Confédération des brasseurs du marché commun who had attended a meeting organised by the Commission on 11 October 1996 and of companies and persons in the 14 categories identified in your original request for access to documents who had made submissions to the Commission under file reference P/93/4490/UK.

On 27 November 2001, the European Parliament's Committee on Petitions adopted a report (reference A5-0423/2001) in which it endorsed my special report and submitted a draft resolution to that effect. The report was drafted by Jean Lambert MEP.

On 11 December 2001, the European Parliament voted to approve the resolution on the Ombudsman's Special Report. In its resolution, the European Parliament took the view that the Commission should provide you with the information that you had requested. The EP also recommended some further measures, for example that model codes of conduct should be drawn up in order to set up standards with a view to preventing the abuse of data protection for other purposes.

Given that the European Parliament has now completed its examination of my special report and endorsed its conclusions, I will close the file.

You may now revert to the Commission and invite it to reconsider its position in the light of the views expressed by the European Parliament.

Yours sincerely,

 

Jacob SÖDERMAN