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1. The Commission shall seek information and views regarding the Union’s economic interests in specific goods or services sectors, or regarding specific trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights, in the application of this Regulation, through a notice in the Official Journal of the European Union or through other suitable public communication means, indicating the period within which input is to be submitted. The Commission shall take the input received into account.

1a. When the Commission envisages measures pursuant to point (ba) or (bb) of Article 5(1), it shall inform and conduct consultations with stakeholders, in particular industry associations, affected by possible commercial policy measures and with Member State public authorities involved in the formulation or implementation of legislation regulating the affected fields. Without unduly delaying the adoption of such measures, the Commission shall, in particular, seek information on:

(a) the impact of such measures on third country service providers or right-holders who are nationals of the third country concerned and on Union competitors, users or consumers of such services or intellectual property rights holders;

(b) the interaction of such measures with relevant Member State regulations;

(c) the administrative burden which may be occasioned by such measures. The Commission shall take utmost account of the information gathered during such consultations. The Commission shall provide an analysis of the envisaged measures to Member States when proposing the draft implementing act pursuant to Article 8.

2. Information received pursuant to this Regulation shall be used only for the purpose for which it was requested.

3. Neither the European Parliament, nor the Council, nor the Commission, nor Member States, nor their respective officials shall reveal any information of a confidential nature received pursuant to this Regulation, without specific permission from the supplier of such information.

4. The supplier of information may request that information supplied be treated as confidential. In such cases, it shall be accompanied by a non-confidential summary which presents the information in a generalised form or a statement of the reasons why the information cannot be summarised.

5. If it appears that a request for confidentiality is not justified and if the supplier is unwilling either to make the information public or to authorise its disclosure in generalised or summary form, the information in question may be disregarded.

6. Paragraphs 2 to 5 shall not preclude the disclosure of general information by the institutions of the Union and the authorities of the Member States. Such disclosure must take into account the legitimate interest of the parties concerned in not having their business secrets divulged.