Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-01-16-Speech-3-151"
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"en.20020116.11.3-151"2
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"Mr Vice-President, I would also like to congratulate you on your election. Like my fellow Members, who have underlined that this was a report of titanic proportions, requiring a great deal of work, I would like to use my two minutes’ speaking time to try to put forward what I personally believe to be the essential points, bearing in mind those involved, particularly the local and regional authorities and the citizens.
In my view, the Zappalà report, which was approved by the Committee on Legal Affairs, improves on the Commission’s original proposal for a directive. On the pretext of simplifying and updating the existing legislation, the Commission’s proposal does indeed propose to make the regulations uniform, but the main way, if not the only way, it achieves this is through liberalisation and this is something I cannot accept. Thus, when it comes to using prices as a criterion for awarding contracts, the lowest price is favoured over social and environmental criteria. I believe therefore, as do other Members, that the stakes are very high. Given their activity, public authorities should favour employment and sustainable development but decisions are instead based on financial criteria alone. However, in March 2000, the European Trade Union Confederation pointed out how much importance the Community regime for public contracts placed upon the concept of price, to the detriment of social and territorial cohesion, equality and employment.
As I said, the Zappalà report improves on the Commission’s directive, particularly by raising the thresholds on opening up public procurement contracts by 50% and also by taking into greater consideration the social and environmental criteria. If adopted in its current form, I think it might represent an improvement on the current situation. Despite this, it is essentially the approach of liberalisation that is favoured.
In a communication of 15 October 2001, the Commission was forced to put forward the option of integrating social and environmental aspects into procedures for the award of public contracts. However, this communication is not legally binding in character. We must therefore go further and approach it in a different way; this is the sense of the amendments tabled by my group. Within the award criteria, employment, the environment and town planning must be put on the same footing as economic cost. Of course, my group’s vote will depend on the outcome of the vote on the committee’s amendments and also on the amendments that will be proposed tomorrow."@en1
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