Secretariat‐General Ethics, Good Administration & Relations with the European Ombudsman European Commission

 

Dear Mr X,

The European Ombudsman has received a complaint against the European Commission.

The complainant asked the Commission for public access to documents related to lobbying activities of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) on 19 June 2024. The meeting in question concerned Ukraine’s possible EU accession and Russian influence in the Western Balkans. The Commission gave access to meeting minutes and an email but redacted personal data of the external participants.

The complainant is dissatisfied with this outcome. He suspects that one of the participants to the meeting on TBI’s behalf was Ms Sanna Marin, who was prime minister of Finland until April 2023 and joined TBI in September 2023 as strategic councillor. The complainant is interested in how Ms Marin's paid public policy work relates to her ongoing public advocacy on a number of issues, and how that may influence public policy, including at EU-level. This is why he would like the Commission to confirm whether Ms Marin, who he considers is still a public figure, participated in the meeting on 19 June 2024.

The complainant argues that there is considerable public interest, both in the arguments put forward by TBI in public and behind closed doors, and in how these arguments align with the interests of their sponsors. The complainant also makes a broader argument, namely that interest representatives, when acting in a professional capacity, should not be able to hide behind data protection rules.

We have decided to open an inquiry into the complaint against the Commission’s decision to refuse access to the names of the participating interest representatives under Regulation 1049/2001.

Regulation 1049/2001 states that applications for access should be handled promptly. It is in line with this principle that the Ombudsman also seeks to deal with cases such as this as quickly as possible.

As a first step, we consider it necessary to review the documents at issue in the complainant’s request. We would be grateful if the Commission could provide the meeting minutes and the email in question, preferably in electronic format through encrypted e-mail,[1] by 6 December 2024.

The documents subject to the public access request will be treated confidentially, along with any other material the Commission chooses to share with us that it marks confidential. Documents of this kind will be handled and stored in line with this confidential status and will be deleted from the Ombudsman’s files shortly after the inquiry has ended.

The Commission’s position has been set out in its final decision. However, should the Commission wish to provide additional views, to be taken into account by the European Ombudsman during this inquiry, we would be grateful if they could be provided to us within fifteen working days from the receipt of this letter, that is, 20 December 2024.

The inquiries officer responsible for the case is Koen Roovers.

Yours sincerely,

Rosita Hickey
Director of Inquiries

Strasbourg, 02/12/2024

 

[1] Encrypted emails can be sent to our dedicated mailbox.