The European Commission wishes to work more closely with the member states to ensure that the national and local public authorities do more to build the major principles introduced in the legislative revision of 2014 into their public procurement policies.
Three years after the adoption of the revised 'public procurement' directives (see EUROPE 11730), “we found out that public authorities are not making enough of the opportunities offered” by the legislative framework as an instrument to support strategic objectives such as protecting the environment and innovation, the Commissioner for the Single Market, Elżbieta Bieńkowska, said on Tuesday 3 October. She called for a “cultural shift”, by placing greater emphasis on the most economically advantageous tenders when awarding public procurement contracts.
According to a communication adopted by the Commission on the same day, in 55% of cases, the lowest price remains the sole criterion for awarding contracts and the competitive process of a call for tenders is losing intensity. Between 2006 and 2016, the number of calls for tender with only one tender submitted rose from 17% to 30%.
The Commissioner for Growth, Jyrki Katainen, spoke of the possibilities opened up by the European directives to make it easier for SMEs to access public buying. He reiterated the Commission's commitment to negotiating public procurement access clauses in trade negotiations with third countries, on the basis of what was achieved with Canada.
The Commission has furthermore developed an ex-ante assessment mechanism for major infrastructure projects that contracting authorities may activate on a voluntary basis. For projects in excess of €250 million, it will respond within a month to all questions that a project owner may wish to ask. For projects in excess of €500 million, it may assess the compatibility between the plan for awarding public contracts and European law within three months. The advice provided by the European institution will not be binding.
Lastly, the Commission has put together a proposed recommendation encouraging the member states to set in place training strategies and programmes for public buyers, to promote the use of new technologies in the award of public contracts.
The 2014 directives make the electronic submission of tenders a requirement from October 2018 onwards. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)