Brussels, 01/12/2003 (Agence Europe) - The Council and the European Parliament hope to reach agreement at a Conciliation meeting in Brussels on Tuesday evening on the public tender directives. The main area of disagreement is the issue of taking account of social and environmental clauses in awarding public contracts (see EUROPE of 6 November, p. 14).
The two public tender directives (a framework directive and a more specific sector-based directive) assume contracts must be granted to the...