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Action brought on 31 December 2009 - In 't Veld v Council

(Case T-529/09)

Language of the case: English

Parties

Applicant: Sophie in 't Veld (Brussels, Belgium) (represented by: O. Brouwer and J. Blockx, lawyers)

Defendant: Council of the European Union

Form of order sought

annul the decision of the Council to refuse full access to document 11897/09;

order the Council to pay the applicant's costs, including the costs of any intervening parties.

Pleas in law and main arguments

By means of this application the applicant seeks annulment of the Council decision of 8 September 2009 rejecting her request, pursuant to Regulation No 1049/2001¹, of the full access to document 11897/09 which is an opinion from the Legal Service of the Council concerning the legal basis of the "Recommendation from the Commission to the Council to authorise the opening of negotiations between the European Union and the United States of America for an international agreement to make available to the United States Treasury Department financial messaging data to prevent and combat terrorism and terrorist financing". The Council has provided the applicant with a redacted version of document 11897/09, excluding those parts which, in the applicant's opinion, would enable her to gain knowledge of the substance of the Legal Service's analysis.

The applicant submits that the contested decision should be annulled because it violates the rules on access to documents contained in Regulation No 1049/2001.

First, the applicant contends that the contested decision is wrongly based on Article 4(1)(a), third indent of Regulation 1049/2001 (protection of international relations) as the Council fails to show how full disclosure of document 11897/09 would undermine the protection of the public interest as regards the protection of the European Union's international relations.

Second, the applicant claims that the contested decision is also based on an erroneous interpretation of Article 4(2), second indent of Regulation 1049/2001 (protection of legal advice) as this exception does not apply to document 11897/09 since its full disclosure would not undermine the protection of court proceedings or legal advice and since there is an overriding public interest in making document 11897/09 fully accessible to the public.

Subsidiarily, should the Court consider that these aforementioned exceptions would be applicable to document 11897/09, the applicant submits that the Council has wrongly applied Article 4(6) of Regulation 1049/2001 insofar as it redacted from document 11897/09 more information than what was strictly necessary.

Finally, the Applicant submits that the Council did not fulfil its obligation to state reasons for the contested decision.

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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