Tajikistan Framework Agreement

Complaint

On 25 March 2009, CEE Bankwatch Network, a non-governmental organisation which monitors the activities of the international financial institutions in Central and Eastern Europe, submitted a complaint to the EIB Complaints Mechanism (EIB-CM).  The complaint concerns the request for disclosure of the Framework Agreement between the EIB and the Republic of Tajikistan submitted to the competent services of the EIB on 17 February 2009. In its message, the complainant took the view that its request was wrongly rejected insofar as the concerned services refused the disclosure on the basis of §33 of the Public Disclosure Policy, thus considering the Framework Agreement as a "third-party document".  

EIB-CM Action

Following a preliminary analysis on the admissibility of the complaint, the EIB-CM deemed appropriate to carry out further inquiries with a view to gathering additional information on the complaint. In this context, the EIB-CM reviewed the information provided by the complainant as well as the submissions by the competent services of the EIB. Finally, it conducted an inter-services consultation on the issue raised by the complainant.

Conclusions and Recommendations

Following a review of the exchange of correspondence between the complainant and the competent services of the EIB, the EIB-CM acknowledges that the refusal to disclose the Framework Agreement was not correctly grounded. However, the EIB-CM concludes that the EIB is not in the position to disclose the requested document insofar as it is still undergoing the process of ratification by the competent authorities of Tajikistan. In that regard, the EIB-CM recommends the competent services of the EIB to liaise with the Tajiki authorities with a view to timely inform the complainant on the status of its request once the requested document have been ratified. The complainant subsequently turned to the European Ombudsman.