The latest inter-institutional negotiation meeting (‘trilogue’) on the International Procurement Instrument (IPI) saw progress on almost all issues, according to one source, although these were not marked as closed.
The aim is to complete the negotiations before the official start of the presidential election campaign in France. According to the same source, negotiators are confident that they can reach an agreement at the next trilogue on 14 March. They indicated that it was possible to reconcile the different approaches on the remaining issues.
These relate to: exemptions from the IPI; thresholds above which public procurement procedures are covered; adjusting the score for public procurement bidders. On these elements, however, the positions are getting closer.
The European Parliament, for example, seems ready to accept that only the least developed countries should be exempted from the regulation and not those benefiting from the Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP), according to another source.
Work at the technical level should intensify between now and the next meeting. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)