EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 190/30

(Case T-189/15)

(2015/C 190/34)

Language of the case: Dutch

Parties

Applicants: TMG Landelijke Media BV (Amsterdam, Netherlands) and Menzo Willems (Voorburg, Netherlands) (represented by: R. Le Poole and L. Broers, lawyers)

Defendant: European Commission

Form of order sought

The applicants claim that the Court should:

—annul the Commission Decision of 17 February 2015;

—order the Commission to pay the costs of the present action.

Pleas in law and main arguments

The applicants challenge the Commission Decision whereby their request for access to the correspondence between the Netherlands and the Commission, concerning the European additional tax imposed on the Netherlands in 2014, was rejected in part.

In support of their action, the applicants rely on four pleas in law.

1.First plea in law, alleging infringement of Article 4(1)(a) of Regulation No 1049/2001 (1). The applicants claim that the Commission wrongly did not make certain documents public because public disclosure would lead to an undermining of the protection of the public interest regarding European Union financial, monetary or economic policy.

2.Second plea in law, alleging infringement of Article 4(3) of Regulation No 1049/2001. The applicants claim that the Commission provided evidence inadequate for concluding that the decision-making process will be seriously undermined, and that it wrongly and readily disregarded the test on the higher public interest in the public disclosure of certain documents.

3.Third plea in law, alleging infringement of Article 4(1)(b) of Regulation No 1049/2001 in relation to the anonymisation of non-senior staff. The applicants claim that that makes it impossible to determine the level at which correspondence is carried out and whether it indeed concerns non-senior staff.

4.Fourth plea in law, alleging infringement of Article 4(5) of Regulation No 1049/2001. The applicants are of the view that the Commission wrongly accepted the Netherlands’ request not to disclose certain documents originating from the Netherlands on the basis of Article 4(1) and (3) of Regulation No 1049/2001. They refer in that regard to the arguments put forward in the context of the second and third pleas.

(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).