Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:1998:25
Date: 1998-02-06
Language of the case: German
Court formation: Third Chamber, Extended Composition
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Provisions governing the Institutions;Access to documents
Concepts: Obligation to state reasons
Procedure: Action for annulment - successful;Action for annulment - inadmissible
Origin: Germany

Summary of the J u d g m e n t 
Commission — Right of public access to Commission documents — Decision 94/90 — Measure 
conferring rights on individuals — Exceptions to the principle of access to documents — Inter­
pretation — Obligation to state reasons — Scope — Refusal to grant access not indicating the 
specific reasons justifying the exception relied upon — Illegality 
(EC Treaty, Arts 162 and 190; Commission Decision 94/90) 
Notwithstanding the fact that Article 162 of 
the Treaty was taken as its legal basis, 
Decision 94/90 on public access to Commis­
sion documents is a measure conferring on 
citizens a right of access to documents held 
by that institution, since there is nothing to 
prevent rules on the internal organisation of 
the work of an institution having legal effects 
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SUMMARY — CASE T-124/96 
vis-à-vis third parties. By virtue of that 
decision, which is intended to apply gener­
ally, any person may request access to any 
unpublished Commission document, and is 
not required to give a reason for the request. 
Whilst the right of access is subject to certain 
exceptions, which fall into two categories, 
those exceptions must be interpreted strictly, 
in order not to frustrate the application of 
the general principle of giving the public the 
widest possible access to documents. As 
regards the exceptions in the first category, 
'which include the provision 'the institutions 
will refuse access to any document where 
disclosure could undermine ... the protection 
of the public interest (public security, inter­
national relations, monetary stability, court 
proceedings, inspections and investigations)', 
the Commission must, before reaching a 
decision on a request, consider, for each 
document requested, whether in the light of 
the information in its possession disclosure is 
in fact likely to undermine one of the those 
interests. If so, the Commission is bound to 
refuse access to the document in question. 
In order to comply with the requirements 
entailed by Article 190 of the Treaty, the 
statement of the reasons for such a decision 
must contain — at least for each category of 
documents concerned — the specific reasons 
for which the Commission considers that 
disclosure of the documents requested is pre­
cluded by one of the exceptions provided for 
in the first category, in order to enable the 
person to whom the decision is addressed to 
satisfy himself that the Commission did in 
fact consider the documents in the manner 
described above and to assess whether the 
grounds for refusal are justified. 
Where the reason stated for a refusal to grant 
access is that the documents requested con­
cern a decision which is the subject-matter of 
an action for annulment, accompanied only 
by the conclusion that the exception for pro­
tection of the public interest (court proceed­
ings) is applicable, that refusal must be 
annulled in that it provides no explanation, 
even for categories of documents, from 
which it might be ascertained whether all the 
documents requested do indeed fall within 
the scope of the exception relied upon 
because they bear a relation to the decision 
whose annulment is sought. 
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