Brussels, 30/05/2007 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission on Wednesday decided that the public procurement conducted by the Welsh Assembly Government for the provision of broadband network services to public sector organisations in Wales does not constitute state aid. It will therefore not raise any objection to the implementation of the scheme.
The project aims to offer Welsh public sector organisations broadband services with high availability in order to improve public service provision to individuals and businesses. By aggregating public sector demand, the scheme would enable economies of scale while mainly still using existing network infrastructures. As this contract is particularly complex, the “competitive dialogue” procedure is used to select the service provider in accordance with EU public procurement directives. The British authorities notified the project to the Commission in January 2007. In its assessment, the Commission examined the situation of network users, the service provider selected from the public procurement, and third party operators. In particular it took note of the following elements: - the network users are public sector organisations which do not carry out economic activities and which cannot therefore be considered as businesses in the sense of the state aid regulations; - the award of the contract does not give the service provider an economic advantage which would breach the conditions. It is purely a public procurement operation in accordance with the EU public procurement directives and which is appropriate to ensure the best value for money. Appropriate mechanisms are in place to guarantee the cost-effectiveness of the scheme throughout the duration of the contract and it will not bring any additional advantage to the service provider; - the public procurement does not confer any advantage on third party operators. (ol)