Brussels, 29/01/2004 (Agence Europe) - With the adoption on Thursday of two reports by Stefano Zappalà (Forza Italian), the European Parliament approved in third reading (414 votes in favour, 23 against and 29 abstentions) the public procurement directives resulting from the conciliation meeting in December 2003 (see EUROPE of 4 December, p.11).
These directives, both framework and sector-specific (water, energy, transport and postal services), simplify and modernise Community rules concerning the awarding of public works and services contracts. They will apply to contracts worth over EUR 162,000 or over EUR 249,000, according to the kind of market, for supplies and services (other than defence and certain contracts awarded by central authorities), and 6.2 million for works. Intended to ensure non-discriminatory access to markets, these directives are mainly based on the principle of the "most advantageous offer from the economic point of view". During conciliation procedure, the parliament nonetheless had environmental and social criteria taken into account during the awarding of contracts, on condition that they are directly linked to the kind of contract. A link which had been upheld by the Court of Justice's jurisprudence.
The Greens/EFA Group welcomed the adoption of the directives, while regretting that they do not go far enough in the social, environmental and fair trade fields. "The new directives are quite ambitious" as they will allow municipalities to apply environmental criteria, Inger Schörling of Sweden notes. Nonetheless, by giving preference to environmentally-friendly technologies, there could have been a way to attain sustainable development objectives defined at the Gothenburg summit, Belgian national Pierre Jonckheer comments.