Brussels, 15/03/2011 (Agence Europe) - France will receive an official demand for it to amend its legislation so as to repeal the provision reserving certain contracts for the supply of geographical information for the Institut géographique national (IGN). Under French law, state services or bodies must buy their large-scale reference geographical information from the IGN, the integrated geographical information system covering the entire territory of France and which comprises four geographical databases. The Commission takes the view that this requirement is “at odds with EU rules on public procurement” and that France should have opened up these contracts to competition, as the geographical information in question could be provided, in most cases, by other economic operators. Similar or equivalent products do, in fact, exist on the market and are already provided to the local authorities in France.
Germany. Germany will also have to inform the Commission in the next two months about the measures that it has taken in order to comply with a ruling from the European Court of Justice (C 271-08). According to this ruling, Berlin has infringed “market” directives by directly awarding contracts for group pension services on the basis of a collective agreement without an EU-wide call for tender. (M.B./transl.fl)