Head of Unit - C2 Secretariat‐General European Commission

 

 

Dear Mr X,

The Ombudsman has received a complaint against the European Commission. The complaint concerns the Commission’s refusal to give public access to (parts of) four documents related to its legislative proposal for a regulation on artificial intelligence (the AI Act).

In April 2023, the complainant, asked for public access to documents concerning the AI Act sent and received by the Directorate-General for Trade during the period April 2021 to April 2023. In the absence of an initial decision within the applicable time limit, the complainant submitted a confirmatory application. When he did not receive a reply at confirmatory stage either, he turned to the Ombudsman.[1] Following our intervention, the Commission replied to the complainant in August 2023. 

 The Commission identified 14 documents as falling within the scope of the request. It gave full or wide partial access to ten documents, redacting only personal data of staff and parts that it considered to fall outside the scope of the request. As regards the remaining four documents, the Commission refused access, in full to two documents (4.a and 9.a) and in part to two documents (10 and 10.a), arguing that disclosure would undermine the protection of the public interest as regards international relations[2] and the protection of privacy and the integrity of the individual.[3] The Commission also said that parts of documents 10 and 10.a fell outside the scope of the request and were thus redacted. The Commission considered that no meaningful partial access to documents 4.a and 9.a was possible.

The complainant challenges the Commission’s position, arguing that broader access to the documents could shed light “whether and to what extent the EU prioritises trade negotiations over its internal law making”.  

We have decided to open an inquiry into the Commission’s decision to refuse access to the four documents above, relying on the need to protect the public interest as regards international relations.

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 four documents at issue. We would be grateful to receive marked copies of the two documents that were partially disclosed (10 and 10.a) and copies of the two documents (4.a, 9.a), which were withheld in their entirety.

We would appreciate if the Commission could provides us with the documents, preferably in electronic format through encrypted e-mail,[4] by 27 February 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 initial reply of 28 August 2023, which was implicitly confirmed. Should the Commission wish to provide additional views, including on the complaint, 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, 12 March 2024.

The inquiries officer responsible for the case is Ms Tereza Mandjukova.

Yours sincerely,

Rosita Hickey
Director of Inquiries

Strasbourg, 19/02/2024

 

[1] Complaint 1505/2023/OAM. 

[2] Article 4(1)(a), third indent of Regulation 1049/2001.

[3] Article 4(1)(b) of Regulation 1049/2001.

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