Brussels, 21/01/2005 (Agence Europe) - The Commission has launched an action plan to facilitate electronic public procurement procedures on the basis of European Directives 2004/18/EC and 2004/17/EC, to be transposed by 2006. The plan recommends adoption of a series of measures of a legal, technical and organisational kind which will allow Member States to successfully carry out the “dematerialisation” of public procurement at national level. The Commission considers that electronic procedures for public procurement will allow buyers and suppliers to cut transaction costs by 50-80%.
Member States will establish national action plans and will encourage the key public buyers to do the same. They may modulate and gradually adjust the implementation of new electronic methods. They should prevent these tools producing undesirable effects, such as excessive centralisation of procurement, inappropriate use of electronic up-bidding, or preference given to closed acquisition systems (e.g. framework-agreements). The Commission will assist Member States in this exercise, monitor implementation of these plans by using appropriate indicators and facilitate the exchange of information at European level, especially within the Public Procurement Network created in Copenhagen in January 2003. Using this network, it will launch a comparative assessment exercise in 2005 on transparency, control and traceability of electronic public procurement systems.
During the first half of 2005, the Commission will publish an interpretative document on the new rules relating to electronic procedures, in order to guarantee that electronic procurement procedures comply with the same legal and technical rules and are compatible between themselves. It will make software available on line for adjudicating authorities and economic operators so that they may become familiar with the rules. There will also be a regulation on standard formulas. For 2006, a new generation of electronic formula will allow the electronic collection, processing and diffusion of all market notices covered by the directives. The Commission will present proposals for review of the common vocabulary for public procurement on the basis of the results of a study underway, as well as a project for an entirely electronic system for collecting and publishing market notices on the “Tenders Electronic Daily” database. At international level, the Commission announces that it will follow negotiations on review of the Agreement on public procurement in the context of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). It will study how appropriate it is to use electronic procedures within the framework of external aid instruments.
With electronic procurement, public procurement also becomes the first sector in which companies use electronic signatures for transactions with public authorities of another Member State. The new directives do not define the kind of signature that is to be used in electronic calls for tender but do make it compulsory for public buyers to be able to deal electronically with any tender presented. Member States must choose their level of requirements in compliance with Directive 1999/93/EC on electronic signatures.