Appeal brought on 29 April 2011 by Internationaler Hilfsfonds e.V. against the order of the General Court (Fourth Chamber) of 24 March 2011 in Case T-36/10 Internationaler Hilfsfonds e.V. v Commission

(Case C-208/11 P)

2011/C 211/27

Language of the case: German

Parties

Appellant: Internationaler Hilfsfonds e.V. (represented by: H. Kaltenecker, Rechtsanwalt)

Other parties to the proceedings: European Commission, Kingdom of Denmark

Form of order sought

Pleas in law and main arguments

The appellant is a non-governmental organisation under German law which acts in the humanitarian field. The background to the dispute is a contract, ‘LIEN 97-2011’, concluded with the Commission for the co-financing of a medical aid project in Kazakhstan. The contract and the project were unilaterally terminated by the Commission, wrongly in the appellant’s opinion, in October 1999.

The appellant has attempted since the termination of the contract to ascertain the Commission’s reasons for ending the project, which in its opinion and that of the Kazakhstan Government was important and had been successfully started. It suspects misuse of powers, and has therefore attempted in several procedures before the European Ombudsman and the European Union judicature to obtain disclosure by the Commission of all the relevant documents pursuant to 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. The Commission is refusing full access.

The appeal is directed against the order of the General Court dismissing as inadmissible the appellant’s action for annulment of a Commission decision of 9 October 2009 which confirmed its refusal to disclose all the documents, and also ordering the appellant to pay the costs. The appellant complains that the General Court wrongly calculated and interpreted the time-limit for bringing the application.

The appellant complains in particular that the General Court did not take into account that its application was directed against a decision of the Commission provided for in the two-stage procedure under Regulation No 1049/2001. It would not have been able, in terms of procedural law, to bring an action before the answer the Commission said it would give to the appellant’s confirmatory request of 15 October 2009 asking for review of the answer of 9 October 2009 to its initial request. The appellant acted in this respect in accordance with the case-law of the European Union judicature. The period for bringing proceedings started to run from the receipt of the answer to its confirmatory request, deemed to be negative in accordance with Article 8(3) of Regulation No 1049/2001, on 2 December 2009. It ended on 2 February 2010. The application was therefore made in good time, in the opinion of the appellant. The appellant cannot understand how the General Court could, erring in law, set the start of the period for bringing proceedings at 16 October 2009 (the date of making the confirmatory request) and the end at 29 December 2009, without taking into account that it was not until the negative answer to its confirmatory request that the decision of 9 October 2009 (provisional answer to its initial request) became a legal act amenable to challenge.