Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-02-01-Speech-4-026"
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"en.20070201.4.4-026"2
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".
Madam President, the issue of the renegotiation of the WTO Government Procurement Agreement, known as the GPA, is important for Europe as it should provide our companies with future opportunities outside the Community. Last December, after many years of long and difficult negotiations, the GPA parties reached a provisional understanding on a new revised text. I consider this to be a major achievement in the current context of the Doha Round. It demonstrates that the political will to reach an understanding on sensitive issues remains alive.
I am confident that if we succeed, this new agreement will constitute a milestone for international trade and create new opportunities for our companies.
The new text provides for more clarity and transparency, as well as better guarantees for equal treatment in the procurement procedures. It includes, for the first time, provisions for conducting electronic procurement.
The European Community played an important role during the negotiations. The existing agreement is unbalanced, both in terms of procedural guarantees and coverage. Our main objectives were to fill the gaps and to eliminate ambiguities.
We wanted to obtain better legal guarantees for our suppliers, similar to those offered by our internal regime. At the same time we sought to make the new agreement more attractive for developing countries via new specific measures. The final agreement on the new text is subject to a satisfactory outcome of the market access negotiations which are ongoing. Here as well, we need to rebalance the situation in favour of the Community. Hence the coverage our partners currently offer should be extended to the level the Community has offered and it should be more uniform.
We all want to see improved access for our companies to foreign countries’ procurement markets. The Council emphasised in its recent conclusions on the Commission’s communication ‘Global Europe – Competing in the World’ that we need to achieve additional improvements in market access with our future major trading partners, namely in public procurement.
The Community has submitted a comprehensive request and offer which will give the other GPA parties all the necessary incentives to offer significant additional procurement opportunities. Should we fail to get a substantial improvement from other GPA parties, we will consider taking the necessary measures to adapt the Community commitments in the new GPA accordingly.
In the absence of improved access for the EU to third-country procurement markets, Commissioner Mandelson and I are reflecting on a market-opening instrument to enhance EU access.
The case of our SMEs certainly deserves particular attention. It will specifically benefit from the new text, with the introduction of rules on electronic procurement and, if negotiations are completed successfully, the lowering of thresholds of some parties. However, let me remind you that the agreement deals with rather large procurement contracts which are mainly undertaken by big companies. SMEs certainly have an important role to play, but mostly as subcontractors. This is why we have asked our GPA partners who currently maintain specific derogations for their domestic SMEs to abandon them.
On the prospects of extending the geographical scope of the agreement, eight WTO members are in the process of acceding to it. Among those, Jordan is the most advanced. China has indicated that it will start accession negotiations by December this year and, following my visit there last year, we are already preparing this important accession. As already mentioned, the Community has pushed for better provisions on the special and differential treatment for developing countries. I believe we have achieved a good result with tailor-made new rules that fully take their specific needs into account."@en1
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