{"id":27749,"date":"2017-02-27T16:13:18","date_gmt":"2017-02-27T15:13:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.access-info.org\/?p=27749"},"modified":"2018-11-13T10:03:42","modified_gmt":"2018-11-13T09:03:42","slug":"commissioners-expenses-campaign-update-requesters-left-in-the-dark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.access-info.org\/es\/2017-02-27\/commissioners-expenses-campaign-update-requesters-left-in-the-dark\/","title":{"rendered":"Commissioners\u2019 Expenses Campaign Update: Requesters Left in the Dark"},"content":{"rendered":"

Madrid, 27 February 2017<\/em> \u2013 A month after 120 people from around Europe submitted a total of 189 requests for data on the travel expenses of European Commissioners<\/a> for the year 2016, the requests have not even been registered by the Commission, in flagrant breach of its legal obligation to do so, and to respond within 15 working days.<\/p>\n

In an email exchange with Access Info\u2019s director, Helen Darbishire, the Head of the Transparency Unit at the Secretariat General, Martin Kr\u00f6ger, has stated in writing that \u201cCommission does not intend to send individual communications \u2026 to the applicants\u201d and that \u201cthe Commission is currently examining the appropriate way of handling these requests.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is unusual behaviour, given that requests are normally registered within one working day.<\/p>\n

The email exchange with the Commission is available here: \"alt\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe wall of silence facing these requests is unprecedented and shocking<\/em>,\u201d stated Helen Darbishire, \u201cthe blatant refusal to register and respond is a violation of the right of access to documents protected by the EU treaties<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Access Info has also denounced the attempt by the Commission, in its email, to make us responsible for communicating with the requesters, because \u201cthe requests have been triggered by an AccessInfoEurope

[sic] initiative via the AsktheEU website.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her response, declining to act as an intermediary, Helen Darbishire reminded the Commission that members of the public who have engaged in this campaign by submitting requests have the right to be treated equally before the law. She asserted that it is the role of civil society to press for transparency around the spending of public funds on public business.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Access Info has received a holding response to its 31 January 2017 letter<\/a> to Vice President Frans Timmermans, in which the pro-transparency organisation called for proactive publication of the expenses data. The message from Timmermans\u2019 cabinet confirms receipt of the letter and says \u201cwe will reply shortly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn spite of the bizarre reluctance by the Commission to provide the public with the travel expenses data, we are still hoping that it will do the right thing and publish this information in full,<\/em>\u201d concluded Darbishire.<\/p>\n

For more information, please contact:<\/h2>\n

Luisa Izuzquiza<\/strong>, Communications Officer | Access Info Europe
\nor
\nAndreas Pavlou<\/strong>, Campaigner and Researcher | Access Info Europe<\/p>\n

Send an e-mail<\/a> or call +34\u202f913\u202f656\u202f558

<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Madrid, 27 February 2017 \u2013 A month after 120 people from around Europe submitted a total of 189 requests for data on the travel expenses of European Commissioners for the year 2016, the requests have not even been registered by the Commission, in flagrant breach of its legal obligation to do so, and to respond within 15 working days. In an email exchange with Access Info\u2019s director, Helen Darbishire, the Head of the Transparency Unit at the Secretariat General, Martin Kr\u00f6ger, has stated in writing that \u201cCommission does not intend to send individual communications \u2026 to the applicants\u201d and that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":27750,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125,51],"tags":[66,828,897,72,901,193,902,900,898],"class_list":["post-27749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-eut","category-article","tag-asktheeu","tag-asktheeu-org","tag-commissioners-expenses","tag-eu-commission","tag-eu-commissioners","tag-european-commission","tag-european-commissioners","tag-request-campaign","tag-travel-expenses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.access-info.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.access-info.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.access-info.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.access-info.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.access-info.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27749"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.access-info.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28411,"href":"https:\/\/www.access-info.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27749\/revisions\/28411"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.access-info.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.access-info.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.access-info.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.access-info.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}