Case T-31/18: Action brought on 20 January 2018 — Izuzquiza and Semsrott v Frontex
Date: 2018-01-20
Institutions: General Court
Subjects: Frontex, Internet site, Mediterranean Sea, access to EU information, disclosure of information, public safety, ship's flag, vessel








C_2018112EN.01003602.xml










26.3.2018   


EN


Official Journal of the European Union


C 112/36





Action brought on 20 January 2018 — Izuzquiza and Semsrott v Frontex
(Case T-31/18)
(2018/C 112/47)
Language of the case: English

Parties


Applicants: Luisa Izuzquiza (Madrid, Spain) and Arne Semsrott (Berlin, Germany) (represented by: S. Hilbrans and R. Callsen, lawyers)

Defendant: European Border and Coast Guard Agency

Form of order sought

The applicants claim that the Court should:






—


annul the decision by Frontex of 10 November 2017 (ref: CGO/LAU/18911 c/2017), refusing the applicants access to the name, flag and type of each vessel deployed by Frontex in the Central Mediterranean under Joint Operation Triton in the period from 1 June 2017 until 30 August 2017, both inclusive;










—


order the defendant to pay the costs incurred by the applicants, including the costs of any intervening party, even if the action is dismissed.





Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of the action, the applicants rely on six pleas in law.






1.


First plea in law, alleging that Frontex infringed Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001, (1) by failing to carry out an individual examination of each requested document in order to assess whether the exception relied on was applicable.










2.


Second plea in law, alleging that Frontex infringed the first indent of Article 4(1)(a) of that regulation, which relates to public security, because the reasons given to justify the application of the exception are in a decisive part incorrect in fact: vessels deployed to the operation cannot be tracked by publicly accessible means.










3.


Third plea in law, alleging that Frontex infringed the first indent of Article 4(1)(a) of that regulation, which relates to public security, because the reasons given to justify the application of the exception leave out of consideration the circumstance that the applicants only requested information on vessels deployed in the past.










4.


Fourth plea in law, alleging that Frontex infringed the first indent of Article 4(1)(a) of that regulation, which relates to public a security, because the defendant did not consider — and did not answer this argument put forward by the applicants — that part of the requested information was already published on Twitter for some of the vessels deployed under Joint Operation Triton in 2017 and comparable information for vessels deployed under Joint Operation Triton in 2016 was already published.










5.


Fifth plea in law, alleging that Frontex infringed Article 4(6) of that regulation because even if the — in fact not existing — risk that criminal networks circumvent border surveillance would be presumed true, this could possibly only justify refusing information on the name of the vessels deployed but not on the type and flag.










6.


Sixth plea in law, alleging that Frontex infringed Article 4(6) of that regulation by not considering to give partial access to the requested information, even though the information on some of the vessels was already published.






(1)  Regulation (EC) 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).