The General Court of the European Union dismissed, on Wednesday 27 November, the appeal brought by journalists against the refusal of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) to give them access to information on vessels deployed in the summer of 2017 as part of Operation Triton, in a judgement delivered on Wednesday 27 November (Case T-31/18).
In 2016, the maritime security operation at the Triton border, which followed the Italian operation Mare Nostrum, had an operational area reaching the coasts of Italy and Malta, up to 138 nautical miles south of Sicily. South of this operational area, Member States had deployed coastguard and military vessels as part of the EUNAVFOR MED Operation Sophia, which is not a Frontex operation.
The applicants' request concerned information on the name, type and flag of each vessel for the period from 1 June to 30 August 2017 for all vessels deployed by Frontex in the Central Mediterranean as part of Operation Triton. Journalists argue that the Commission had already published information on ships deployed in Operation Triton 2016 in its February 2017 report. They added that information on ships deployed in other EU operations had been actively published.
In the case brought forward by journalists, the General Court ruled in favour of Frontex, which, in its view, had provided plausible explanations for the risk that the disclosure of the documents in question would pose to the protection of the public interest in the field of public security in the Union.
According to Frontex, the information requested by the applicants is sufficient to locate and then track a vessel, if combined with low-tech (observation from the coast or from a vessel) or high-tech (use of drones) surveillance means.
Thus, knowing the location of the vessels, traffickers would have the necessary information to circumvent border surveillance and cross the external border and access, irregularly, the territory of an EU Member State.
The Court therefore concludes that the explanations provided by Frontex retain their plausibility and demonstrate the existence of a foreseeable, and not merely hypothetical, risk to public security. In its view, this situation justifies the use of the exception provided for in Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, EU Council and Commission documents.
See the judgment of the General Court: http://bit.ly/2Do9O12 (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)