EN Official Journal of the European Union C 58/4

Appeal brought on 29 November 2011 by Republic of Finland against the judgment delivered on 9 September 2011 in Case T-29/08 Liga para Protecção da Natureza (LPN) v European Commission

(Case C-605/11P)

2012/C 58/04

Language of the case: Portuguese

Parties

Appellant: Republic of Finland (represented by: J. Heliskoski and M. Pere)

Other parties to the proceedings: Liga para Protecção da Natureza (LPN), European Commission, Kingdom of Denmark, Kingdom of Sweden

Form of order sought

— set aside the judgment under appeal in so far as the General Court rejected the LPN’s application;

— annul the contested decision of the Commission and order the Commission to pay the costs incurred by Finland in the present appeal.

Pleas in law and main arguments

In Case T-29/08 Liga para Protecção da Natureza (LPN) v European Commission, the General Court infringed Article 58 of the Statute of the Court of Justice because it did not annul the contested decision of the Commission of 22 November 2007 in so far as the LPN was refused access to documents and parts of documents by the Commission decision of 24 October 2008.

1. The General Court erred in law when it interpreted the third indent of Article 4(2) Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents (1) (‘the Openness Regulation’) as meaning that all the documents relating to the case in the main proceedings are protected as a class of documents so that the institution may refuse access to all the documentary material concerning the infringement proceedings based on the general presumption according to which the disclosure of the information contained in such documents in principle undermines the protection of the purpose of investigations.

2. The General Court incorrectly interpreted the last part of Article 4(2) of the Openness Regulation and Article 6(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1367/2006 on the application of the provisions of the Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters to Community institutions and bodies (2) when assessing whether the Commission took into consideration any overriding reasons of public interest before refusing the request for access. The General Court incorrectly interpreted the relevant rules because it failed to verify properly whether the Commission had balanced, in accordance with the requirements set out in those rules, the interest protected in the third indent of Article 4(2) of the Openness Regulation and the possible overriding public interest in the disclosure of the requested documents.

(1) Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents (OJ 2001 L 145, p. 43).

(2) Regulation (EC) No 1367/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 September 2006 on the application of the provisions of the Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters to Community institutions and bodies (OJ 2006 L 264, p. 13).