Dear Ms Izuzquiza,
Following our e-mail of 27 May 2019 acknowledging the receipt of your request for information, we are pleased to provide you with an answer to your query hereunder.
Please be informed that at the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), all public access to documents requests submitted under Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001<
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1562162988135&uri=CELEX:32001R1049> (hereinafter the “PAD Regulation”) are processed in a centralised manned by a team of 5 statutory staff members and two trainees working in the Legal and Assurance Services, under the Business Services Department. The team in charge of public access to documents requests (hereinafter the “PAD team”) is ensuring internal coordination and liaison with the rest of EFSA Units/Departments for collecting and screening documents in the scope of the requests and ensuring proper engagement with requestors and third parties or Member States author of documents in EFSA’s possession. Please consider that the staff handling the requests is not exclusively working on public access to documents and is dealing with additional tasks in the scope of the Legal and Assurance Services. The full time dedicated to this task is reflected in the information provided in fulltime staff equivalent (FTEs).
We are pleased to provide you with figures in relation to the processing of access to documents request at EFSA which are publicly available on EFSA’s website as follows:
* Information for the years 2017, 2018 and 2019 on the number of staff in EFSA’s Transparency Unit (or department dealing with access to EU documents requests) and its budget:
You can find the information requested in the Programming documents of the EFSA work which is prepared every three years for the years to come.
For the period going from 2016 until 2018 you can find the programme on access to documents foreseen at the following link:
https://www.efsa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/programmingdocument2016_2018.pdf. On page 42 there is a description of the planned resource allocation in this field.
For the years 2019-2021 you can find the Programming document at the following link:
https://www.efsa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/corporate_publications/files/amp1921.pdf. You will find in pages 13, 35 and 71 information on the access to documents process.
* Information for the years 2016, 2017 and 2018 on the handling of access to EU documents requests by EFSA - number of initial requests and confirmatory applications received per year:
Regarding your request for information on the number of requests and confirmatory applications per year from 2016 to 2018, please find below the links to documents publicly available where you can find this information:
* The EFSA Annual Activity Reports:
* 2016:
https://www.efsa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/corporate_publications/files/ar2016.pdf
* 2017:
https://www.efsa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/corporate_publications/files/ar2017.pdf
* 2018:
https://www.efsa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/corporate_publications/files/ar2018.pdf
* The European Parliament decisions on discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of EFSA:
* EP Discharge 2016:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-8-2018-0146_EN.html?redirect
* EP Discharge 2017:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-8-2019-0267_EN.html
* In addition for the years 2017 and 2018 you can find additional information on the statistics on access to documents in the document presented at the meeting Industry Roundtable held on 13 June 2018:
http://www.efsa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/event/180613-p07.pdf
We hope this addresses your request.
Yours sincerely,
Public Access to documents Team
Legal and Assurance Services
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