23.5.2015   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

L 128/27

(1)

The regime on public access to European Central Bank (ECB) documents is laid down in Decision ECB/2004/3 (2).

(2)

ECB documents may be in the possession of the national competent authorities as a result of their duty to assist the ECB, to cooperate in good faith and to exchange information with the ECB pursuant to Regulation (EU) No 1024/2013. The performance of supervisory tasks conferred on the ECB and the effective functioning of the single supervisory mechanism may be hampered if the ECB is not consulted on the scope of access to be granted in respect of ECB documents in the possession of the national competent authorities or, if alternatively, requests for access to such documents are not referred to the ECB. Therefore, requests for access to such documents should either be referred to the ECB or the ECB should be consulted prior to any decision on disclosure,

(1)

‘document’ and ‘ECB document’ shall mean any content whatever its medium (written on paper or stored in electronic form or as a sound, visual or audiovisual recording) drawn up or held by the ECB and relating to its policies, activities or decisions under Regulation (EU) No 1024/2013;

(2)

‘national competent authority’ (NCA) shall have the meaning assigned to it in point (2) of Article 2 of Regulation (EU) No 1024/2013. This meaning is without prejudice to arrangements under national law that assign certain supervisory tasks to a national central bank (NCB) that is not designated as an NCA. With regard to such arrangements, a reference to an NCA in this Decision shall also refer to the NCB in respect of the supervisory tasks assigned to it by national law.