Brussels, 17/01/2014 (Agence Europe) - A number of interest groups have expressed broad satisfaction at the approval by the European Parliament of changes to the public procurement directives and new rules for concessions (see EUROPE 10997).
Local community and public enterprise organisations are happy with the new rules on public-public cooperation, commenting that, in the current financial context, the sharing of services and administrative tasks is increasingly common among awarding authorities and therefore they welcome the measures on public-public cooperation that will help local governments to save public money. Similar comments were made by the European centre for public enterprises and enterprises of general economic interest (CEEP), which views the recognition of the freedom of public authorities to define, organise and finance their services of general economic interest as the main advantage of the legislative changes. Union Social pour l'Habitat says that a great improvement has been made by exempting council and social housing (even social housing companies which include some private capital) from the public procurement rules.
The network of civil society organisations and trade unions for sustainable public procurement (NSDPP) is delighted with the ability granted to awarding authorities to ensure the respect of social and environmental standards. It is pleased with the focus on the most economically advantageous bids (rather than the cheapest), taking into account costs throughout a product or service's life cycle, the option of setting award criteria laying down rules for production and rejecting bidders found guilty of breaking social and environmental rules.
CCRE says it must be possible to continue to choose the cheapest bidder because, although some types of contract must be examined in detail for their environmental and social impact, it is nevertheless possible to award other contracts simply on the basis of price. The organisation, which wants higher thresholds for application of the directives, says that keeping the option of awarding contracts to the cheapest bidder may be required to ensure the most cautious use of taxpayers' money.
The International Construction Industry Federation (FIEC) comments: “The EU institutions did not seize the opportunity to solve one of the most severe shortcomings of the existing public procurement directive, meaning by that the identification and treatment of abnormally low tenders, which is a real curse in the construction sector”. (MB/transl.fl)