Article 5
Consultations 1. Where the Commission receives an application for access to a document which it holds but which originates from a third party, the Directorate-General or department holding the document shall check whether one of the exceptions provided for by Article 4 of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 applies. If the document requested is classified under the Commission's security rules, Article 6 of these Rules shall apply. 2. If, after that examination, the Directorate-General or department holding the document considers that access to it must be refused under one of the exceptions provided for by Article 4 of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001, the negative answer shall be sent to the applicant without consultation of the third-party author. 3. The Directorate-General or department holding the document shall grant the application without consulting the third-party author where: (a) the document requested has already been disclosed either by its author or under the Regulation or similar provisions; (b) the disclosure, or partial disclosure, of its contents would not obviously affect one of the interests referred to in Article 4 of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001. 4. In all the other cases, the third-party author shall be consulted. In particular, if the application for access concerns a document originating from a Member State, the Directorate-General or department holding the document shall consult the originating authority where: (a) the document was forwarded to the Commission before the date from which Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 applies; (b) the Member State has asked the Commission not to disclose the document without its prior agreement, in accordance with Article 4(5) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001. 5. The third-party author consulted shall have a deadline for reply which shall be no shorter than five working days but must enable the Commission to abide by its own deadlines for reply. In the absence of an answer within the prescribed period, or if the third party is untraceable or not identifiable, the Commission shall decide in accordance with the rules on exceptions in Article 4 of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001, taking into account the legitimate interests of the third party on the basis of the information at its disposal. 6. If the Commission intends to give access to a document against the explicit opinion of the author, it shall inform the author of its intention to disclose the document after a ten-working day period and shall draw his attention to the remedies available to him to oppose disclosure. 7. Where a Member State receives an application for access to a document originating from the Commission, it may, for the purposes of consultation, contact the Secretariat-General, which shall be responsible for determining the Directorate-General or department responsible for the document within the Commission. The issuing Directorate-General or department of the document reply to the application after consulting the Secretariat-General.