Lega Dembi Gold

On 25 March 2020, Development by Unity and Brotherly Action for the Future lodged a complaint with the EIB-CM. The complainant alleged that the EIB’s refusal to provide access to the information/documents was in violation of the EIB’s obligations under the Aarhus Regulation, Regulation 1049/2001, the Aarhus Convention and the EIB Group Transparency Policy (TP).

 The EIB-CM concludes that:  

·       the EIB’s decision to refuse partial disclosure of the requested information/documents dating back to more than 30 years at time of initial application was based on an exception which is not referred to by article 5.14 of the EIB TP and, as such, does not comply with the applicable regulatory framework.

·        the EIB’s decision to refuse partial disclosure of the requested information/documents dating back to less than 30 years at time of initial application appears to comply with the applicable regulatory framework, considering the margin of appreciation recognised by the EU judicature.

·        when dealing with the initial application, the EIB did not identify a document which belongs to the concerned operation’s file and is directly relevant to the initial application.

The EIB-CM recommends that:

·        the EIB initiate - in line with article 5.14 of the EIB TP - the process of declassification of documents dating back to more than 30 years at time of initial application and provide partial disclosure of these documents to the complainant; and

·        the EIB assess - in line with the EIB TP - the disclosure of the additional document in the concerned operation’s file, which is directly relevant to the complainant’s initial application.

With regard to the documents which dated back to less than 30 years at the time of initial application, the EIB-CM suggests that, in line with article 5.14 of the EIB TP, once they are more than 30 years old, the EIB initiate the process of declassification and provide partial disclosure of these documents to the complainant.