Case T-468/16: Action brought on 23 August 2016 — Verein Deutsche Sprache v Commission
Date: 2016-08-23
Institutions: General Court
Subjects: access to EU information, data protection, institutional reform








C_2016371EN.01002601.xml










10.10.2016   


EN


Official Journal of the European Union


C 371/26





Action brought on 23 August 2016 — Verein Deutsche Sprache v Commission
(Case T-468/16)
(2016/C 371/29)
Language of the case: German

Parties


Applicant: Verein Deutsche Sprache eV (Dortmund, Germany) (represented by: W. Ehrhardt, lawyer)

Defendant: European Commission

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the Court should:






—


annul the decision of the Secretary-General in the name of the Commission pursuant to Article 4 of the Implementing Rules to Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 of 10 June 2016;










—


order the defendant to pay the costs of the proceedings.





Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of the action, the applicant relies on two pleas in law.






1.


First plea in law: infringement of Article 10(3) TEU, Article 11(2) TEU and Article 41(2)(c) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (‘the Charter’) — no open and transparent dialogue






—


The applicant claims that the decision disregards the applicant’s unmistakeable intention in the application for access to documents to gain a comprehensive insight in the process which led to the decision on the redesigning of the press room in the Commission’s Berlaymont building with a reduction of languages to English and French. Only a few documents were produced that mainly included formalities but did not give information about the author and reasons of the decision.
The Commission does not, in the contested decision, go into details on the document sources referred to by the applicant, keeps the reasons for the refusal of access private and thereby infringes the duty arising from Article 10(3) TEU and further EU legislation to take decisions as openly and as closely to the citizen as possible and to explain the reasons.










—


The applicant further claims that the Commission fails to comply with its obligation under Article 11(2) TEU to maintain an open and transparent dialogue with representative associations, inasmuch as it ignores the association’s concerns, fails to make documents available and provides insufficient information on its reasons for withholding documents.














2.


Second plea in law: infringement of the first subparagraph of Article 15(3) TFEU, Article 42 of the Charter and Article 2(1) and (3) and Article 4(6) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 (1) — partially refused access to documents






—


In the context of the second plea, the applicant maintains that the non-observance of essential parts of the application infringes the EU principle of transparency.










—


The applicant further claims that the Commission, in its decision, incorrectly decided that a particular document could not be made available on grounds of data protection, without specifying that document or describing the content and without providing adequate reasons for that decision.










(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).