On Monday 2 February, the association of European chambers of commerce and industry (Eurochambres), in a position paper on the forthcoming reform of the Public Procurement Directives, warned against the introduction of European preference in the European rules governing public procurement.
“Giving preferential treatment to EU companies in public tenders should only be a last resort for very narrowly defined sectors” such as “security”, says Eurochambres.
Fearing retaliatory measures by third countries in the event of European preference in EU public procurement, it requests that the measure adopted not apply to the following countries: EEA countries, countries participating in a customs union with the EU, countries that have concluded trade agreements with the EU or countries that are members of the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement.
Taking the view that the 2014 Directives have partially achieved their objective, the organisation puts forward a number of measures to strengthen competitive tendering and make it easier for SMEs to participate: - reincorporating into the Public Procurement Directives the provisions relating to public procurement contained in sectoral texts; - requesting official documents only from the company that has won the contract; - facilitating the submission of bids by consortia of companies; - strengthening the allocation of contracts.
Eurochambres is not opposed to the creation of an EU-wide platform for tendering, provided that it is interoperable with existing effective national solutions.
Finally, the organisation rejects the inclusion of social and environmental requirements in calls for tender, which it believes complicates the procedures and results in a smaller number of bids.
See Eurochambres’ position: https://aeur.eu/f/kkp (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)