Brussels, 10/01/2002 (Agence Europe) - In its first reading under the codecision procedure on 16 January the European Parliament will be discussing the reports by Stefano Zappala (Forza Italia) on the Commission's two new draft directives on public procurement aiming to simplify and update the existing legislation. The vote was very tight in Committee stage (see EUROPE of 20 October, p.11) with a split between those who favour raising the thresholds that determine whether a public procurement contract should be subjected to EU legislation and those who prefer to keep things as they are, maintaining the threshold put forward by the Commission.
The first draft directive (a general directive) covers the co-ordination of public procurement procedures for contracts to supply public services, supplies and public works. It attempts to clarify the merge three existing directives and introduce electronic purchasing and new procedures for meeting modern demands. By and large, Zappala endorses the Commission's approach but tables a number of amendments on the controversial issue of thresholds, in other words the financial size of the contract determining whether or not EU legislation will apply. The report recommends bumping up the thresholds proposed by the Commission by around 50% on the grounds that the current thresholds are not attractive enough for foreign companies and therefore would not lead to an intensification of cross-border contracts in public services. Other MEPs, however, support the Commission's desire to keep the existing thresholds, highlighting that any substantial increase would lead to a huge cut in the contracts covered by the new directive and therefore jeopardise the creation of a single European public procurement market. Some amendments want social and environmental criteria to have a bigger place in the procedures for allocating public contracts, while others aim to reorganise the Commission's proposal around the financial, economic and personal situation and the professional capacities of the bidders. The Zappala report wants anyone recently convicted for racketeering, money laundering or fraud to be banned from submitting a bid and wants the same condition to apply to people whose companies have been declared bankrupt.
The report on the draft directive for the energy, water and transport sectors also suggests raising the thresholds by 50%. Alongside technical modifications, it incorporates amendments to the scope of the existing legislation in order to liberalise the water, electricity and telecommunications markets.