Brussels, 14/10/2004 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission to send letters of formal notice to France, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden on the grounds that there is reason to believe that authorities in those countries describe the technical characteristics of the computers they wish to acquire in a discriminatory fashion (for Intel). Earlier this year, it sent similar letters of formal notice to Italy and Germany.
Three variants have been identified in the invitations to tender in question: requirements to supply “Intel” microprocessors, “Intel or equivalent” microprocessors, or microprocessors using a specific clock rate. Under European law on public procurement, a brand may be specified only if it is otherwise impossible to describe the product sufficiently precisely and intelligibly.
The case concerns a dozen calls for tender in France, two in the Netherlands (the Municipality of Amsterdam and the IGEA group, a consortium of contracting authorities), two in Finland (the Universities of Jyväskylä and Tampere) and two in Sweden (the Municipality of Filipstad and Chalmers University of Technology).
The Member States in question have two months to respond.