Brussels, 18/09/2008 (Agence Europe) - Instruments for the award of public contracts electronically exist but the political will to encourage their deployment is lacking at both EU and national level. This was the main outcome of a conference organised by the European association of chambers of commerce and industry, Eurochambres, in Brussels on Thursday 18 September 2008. Company representatives urged the European Commission to be more proactive and set the example by systematically using electronic tools in its purchasing policy.
Eurochambres strongly believes that electronic public tender would improve transparency, update public administration and reduce fraud, explained Arnaldo Abruzzini, Eurochambres Secretary General. Due to interoperability problems, however, the use of existing systems is restricted to national level, he added. The Commission is better placed than the Member States to encourage the evolution of interoperable cross-border solutions and should be more proactive in this domain, he argued. Abruzzini said that if the Commission itself fails to make progress with cross-border solutions for the electronic award of contracts, then no progress would be made. Echoing his remarked, Peter Egardt, Eurochambres Vice-President, said that the European Commission should make it compulsory to apply for Commission tenders electronically. A representative of OPOCE (the European Publications Office) said this was impossible because the IT skills of EU companies varied so dramatically. The OPOCE representative said that refusing to allow a company to offer a bid because it did not have or did not wish to use electronic means would be discriminatory.
EU Commissioner for administrative issues, Siim Kallas, said that the EU e-administration action plan aimed for electronic solutions for the award of public tender to be generalised by 2010 and that by the same date, half of all public purchases in Europe should be the subject of electronic tender (see EUROPE 9179). He quoted 'successes' like systematic e-publication of calls for tender, along with problems like lack of interoperability of electronic signatures. He said mutual recognition of electronic signatures had to become a genuine political priority and welcomed the launch that day by the European Commission of an online helpdesk to help public authorities introduce e-tender systems (http//epractice.eu/people/eprocdemos).
Alfonso Carcasona described the ChamberSign network of seven Member States' chambers of commerce (Austria, Spain, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the United Kingdom and Sweden) which are involved in the cross-border development of electronic signatures. Since 1999, the network has issued more than 3 million digital certificates to authenticate companies for purposes such as VAT declarations, electronic invoicing and the electronic award of public contracts. Under the Small Business Act for Europe, the Commission will be unveiling an EU electronic signatures action plan before the end of the year. (M.B.)