Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-06-21-Speech-4-009"
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"en.20070621.4.4-009"2
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".
Mr President, on behalf of Commissioner McCreevy, I would like to thank warmly the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, and in particular the rapporteur, Mr Fruteau, for his excellent work in preparing the report on the review of the remedies directive in the area of public procurement. Before listening to Members’ remarks, I should like to congratulate Mr Fruteau on his election to the French Parliament. I wish him all the best in this new challenge, and I am sure he will continue to fight for European values from a different perspective. I also want to pay tribute to the committee chairman, the rapporteur and the shadow rapporteurs for the way in which they conducted the negotiations between our three institutions.
Public procurement is a cornerstone of the internal market and accounts for about 16% of EU GDP. It is therefore crucial that public procurement markets be open and transparent, guaranteeing fair competition between bidders from different Member States. Only this will lead to the best value for money for public authorities in terms of procurement. Let me underline that the ultimate beneficiaries of this are the European citizens and taxpayers.
European public procurement rules contribute to more open, transparent and competitive procurement markets. With the rules in place, we now need to make sure that they are respected. The Commission has identified situations where rejected bidders in a public procurement procedure encounter difficulties in seeking legal redress. This is especially the case when the public contract has already been concluded. In such situations a rejected bidder very often cannot reverse the decision, even if he is in the right.
The new directive aims to remedy this in two ways. First, by imposing a mandatory 10-day standstill period between the communication of the award decision and the conclusion of the public contract. Second, by introducing a new mechanism which enables a national court to declare public contracts ‘ineffective’. Ineffectiveness implies that the contract is null and void. Ineffectiveness is the proposed sanction for contracts which have been illegally awarded to a single supplier without prior transparency and competitive tendering. Ineffectiveness is also the proposed sanction where the 10-day standstill period has not been respected and the tenderer’s chances of obtaining the contract have been adversely affected.
The Commission believes that by strengthening national review procedures in this manner, business will have stronger incentives to bid for contracts anywhere in the EU. Adoption of the proposed directive should, therefore, have a major impact, stimulating a further opening-up of the public procurement markets.
I draw your attention to the fact that the compromise contains an obligation that Member States report to the Commission on the specific decisions of national review bodies which are based on the directive. This obligation has been included in the text at the request of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection. The Commission wishes to underline the principle of loyal cooperation which Member States have to observe in fulfilling this obligation. A statement along these lines will be added to the minutes of the Council meeting at which the proposed directive is adopted.
The report adopted last May by the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, under the leadership of Mr Fruteau, has played a very important role in the negotiations. The compromise that is now on the table as Amendment 86 seeks to meet the objectives of the committee and, in particular, its call for a strengthening of national review procedures in the area of public procurement.
Let me conclude that European companies today need open public procurement markets. Effective procedures for seeking redress are essential to make sure that public contracts ultimately go to the company that has made the best offer. This will help to build confidence among businesses and citizens that public procurement procedures are fair and correctly implemented. This new directive constitutes another major step towards more competition in our European single market."@en1
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