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Dear Sir or Madam, Please forward this to the person responsible for reviewing confirmatory applications. With letter dated 25 August 2023 the Council of the EU refused access to the requested documents WK 2690/2023, WK 4656/2018 and WK 5498/2018 on the following basis: „Following our consultations, the General Secretariat considers that the release of these documents to the public cannot be granted, since their disclosure would reveal confidential information on sensitive matters that could be used by EU’s adversaries to cause prejudice to its strategy for the exports control of the dual-use items and to its cooperation, internal and with third countries, in this field. This would undermine public interest as regards defence and military matters and international relations. We have also looked into the possibility of releasing parts of these three documents. However, as the information contained therein forms an inseparable whole, the General Secretariat is unable to give partial access.“ I hereby argue that the refusal of even partial access to the requested documents is not covered by Article 4(1)(a), second and third indent of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001. According to the case law on Article 4(1)(a) of Regulation No 1049/2001 the Council must be recognised as enjoying a wide discretion for the purpose of determining whether the disclosure of documents relating to the fields covered by those exceptions could undermine the public interest. The review of legality of such a decision is therefore limited to verifying whether the procedural rules and the duty to state reasons have been complied with, whether the facts have been accurately stated, and whether there has been a manifest error of assessment or a misuse of powers (EuGH, 01.02.2007, C-266/05 P, para. 34 – Sison v Council). With regard to this case-law, the Council in the present case failed to comply with the duty to state reasons. Furthermore there has been a manifest error of assessment as several relevant factors were not taken into account. Regards the duty to state reasons, the case-law states that the institution which has refused access to a document is obliged to provide a statement of reasons from which it is possible to understand and ascertain, first, whether the document requested does in fact fall within the sphere covered by the exception relied on and, second, whether the need for protection relating to that exception is genuine. With regards to the manifest error of assessment, the Council failed to consider that the requested working papers were part of a legislative process and as such have already been widely distributed. In contrast to the case Sison v Council in which the wide margin of appreciation was recognized the documents of the present request are not classified as “CONFIDENTIAL”. Instead they were widely distributed to all Member States, the European Parliament and therefore a high and unforeseeable number of persons. They were not part of a military strategy meeting or alike. It is therefore not understandable that the documents contain confidential information on sensitive matters that could be used by EU’s adversaries to cause prejudice to its strategy for the exports control of the dual-use items and to its cooperation, internal and with third countries, in this field. If the requested documents contain such sensitive information, they should have been classified accordingly. In addition, Article 4(6) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 clarifies that the exceptions only apply to concrete information and not to entire documents. If only a part of a document is covered by an exception, that part can be redacted and the rest of the document has to be released. The Council failed to convincingly explain why even partial access was refused. The argument put forward that the documents form an inseparable whole and that therefore passages cannot be redacted is insufficient. It is not understandable why individual passages cannot be redacted and the rest of the document can be released. The remaining value of information granted access is not to be evaluated by the Council but by the applicant. As regards the WK 4656/2018 and WK 5498/2018 the Council has clearly stated that they contain comments which are allegedly of sensitive nature. Hence, the document includes more information which must be released as it is not covered by the exception. Best regards Anfragenr: 283729 Antwort an: <<E-Mail-Adresse>> Laden Sie große Dateien zu dieser Anfrage hier hoch: https://fragdenstaat.de/a/283729/ Postanschrift Vera Deleja-Hotko << Adresse entfernt >>