Action brought on 18 January 2008 - Liga para a Protecção da Natureza v Commission of the European Communities

(Case T-29/08)

Language of the case: Portuguese

Parties

Applicant: Liga para a Protecção da Natureza (LPN) (Lisbon, Portugal) (represented by: P. Vinagre e Silva, lawyer)

Defendant: Commission of the European Communities

Form of order sought

Annul the decision of the General Secretariat of the European Commission, in response to a confirmatory application, rejecting the LPN's application for access to the documents concerning the procedure for the construction of the dam in the lower Sabor.

order the European Commission to pay all the costs of the proceedings.

Pleas in law and main arguments

The information requested by the LPN from the Commission should be regarded, from the outset, as information which can and must be made available to it given the significant environmental interest which that entity seeks to defend and take charge of in the context of the project to construct the dam in the lower Sabor (Regulations Nos 1367/ 2006 ¹ and 1049/2001 ²).

The derogation from the presumption that there is an overriding public interest in disclosure (Article 6(1) of Regulation No 1367/2006) does not relieve the Commission of the obligation to weigh up the basis of that interest in each individual case. Any grounds for refusal must be interpreted restrictively by the Commission.

It is not sufficient for the Commission to rely on a theoretical model that the exception related to inspections and audits prevails, without giving any additional, concrete reasons on a document by document basis, in order to adopt a decision refusing access to all of the documents requested by the LPN.

The Commission refused partial access, basing that refusal on general reasons without making any effort to divide the documents into 'confidential and non-confidential parts', on the basis that access may not be given to any of the documents relating to the inspection and investigation proceedings. However, the Commission also has to make a concrete assessment here of the information contained in the documents to which access is sought.

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¹ - 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).

² - 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).