Brussels, 24/01/2013 (Agence Europe) - The introduction of European rules on concessions entered a new phase on Thursday 24 January, following the internal market committee vote at the European Parliament. This was aimed at concluding the dossier before the summer from first reading.
EP rapporteur, Philippe Juvin (EPP, France) spelt out to EUROPE the main messages that this draft directive conveys. The text “formally states” that the regional authorities are free to administer as they see fit and are totally free to choose the modes of management for carrying out work or services. The EP supports greater administrative simplification and is limiting the number of procedures. Juvin said that “there are only two compulsory stages” in a concession procedure. The adjudicating authority will first of all announce its intention of launching a concession and set out the rules for it, particularly with regard to social and environmental criteria. It will then have to announce the result of its selection of potential concession providers. The rapporteur emphasised that free negotiations would prevail between these two phases. The rapporteur also said that another message MEPs wanted to send out was the affirmation of the “in-house” principle, as an internal management mode with an adjudicating power and which was not part of the competitive process. Juvin stated that “this is the first time that the 'in-house' is definitively excluded from the scope of application (under the directive), with private participation only on the condition that this is included in national legislation”.
Privatisation by the back door? Several German MEPs from the EPP, S&D and Greens/EFA groups, though not Andreas Schwab (EPP) or Barbara Weiler (S&D), voted against the draft report. They believe that it carries the danger of opening up a backdoor to the privatisation of water distribution. According to the Union sociale pour l'habitat, an amendment approved on “public-public” cooperation would lead to “the liberalisation of cooperation structures and the pooling of public of law bodies' resources with private participation, even when they are governed by the law and are non-profit-making”.
Juvin said that privatisation is being used as a foil to scare everybody. He said that MEPs and organisations that made such attacks were afraid of change or were protecting themselves against change. He insisted that “examination of the directive was contaminated by many misunderstandings and attempts at misinformation. No, the allocation of a concession it is not a synonym for the privatisation of public services. The directive will only introduce rules if the public authority chooses the concession in question. It does not pre-empt the choice of the latter”. In a press release, Pier Antonio Panzeri (S&D, Italy) highlighted the Social Democrats' support for quality public services.
A concession is different to a public contract in so far as the enterprise providing the concession bears some of the operational or financial risks inherent in the concession and pays itself either totally or partially through the operations its concession undertakes. Concessions relate to major works such as bridges, tunnels and motorway tolls, as well as providing service, such as water purification and waste treatment. (MB/transl.fl)