Article 22 / Access to information and confidentiality

1.   Member States shall ensure, in the interests of transparency, that the competent authority is required to make any information held pursuant to this Directive available to any natural or legal person who so requests in accordance with Directive 2003/4/EC.

2.   Disclosure of any information required under this Directive, including under Article 14, may be refused or restricted by the competent authority where the conditions laid down in Article 4 of Directive 2003/4/EC are fulfilled.

3.   Disclosure of the complete information referred to in points (b) and (c) of Article 14(2) held by the competent authority may be refused by that competent authority, without prejudice to paragraph 2 of this Article, if the operator has requested not to disclose certain parts of the safety report or the inventory of dangerous substances for the reasons provided for in Article 4 of Directive 2003/4/EC.

The competent authority may also decide for the same reasons that certain parts of the report or inventory shall not be disclosed. In such cases, and on approval of that authority, the operator shall supply to the competent authority an amended report or inventory excluding those parts.