Brussels, 30/06/2008 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 25 June 2008, the European Commission adopted a voluntary code of conduct showing public authorities how they should make use of EU public tender directives to make it easier for small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) to win public contracts. The code of conduct is part of the Small Business Act for Europe, an action plan to stimulate growth and employment in SMEs in Europe (see EUROPE 9690). It responds to the seven main problems faced by SMEs when submitting bids, namely the mammoth scale of contracts, problems accessing information, inferior information, over-high requirements in terms of proving qualifications and financial backing, red tape, the systematic selection of the cheapest bid, excessively short deadlines and late payments.
Interested parties consulted over the code of conduct have pointed out that the most important element was a change of culture from public purchasers, explains the Commission rather than changing EU directives to make it easier for SMEs to win public contracts, as has been demanded by some member states. A group of ten countries, led by France, unsuccessfully called for a re-negotiation of the public market agreement at the World Trade Organisation to include a clause to enable the EU to give preferential treatment to European SMEs when awarding public contracts (see EUROPE 9500 and 9364). The EU's amended proposal for renegotiating the public market agreement was submitted to the World Trade Organisation at its headquarters in Geneva in February this year without any such clause. The EU code of conduct can be found at: http: //ec.europa.eu/internal_market/publicprocurement/docs/sme_code_of_best_practices_en.pdf (M.B./transl.fl)