Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-04-06-Speech-3-013-000"
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe we are at a crucial point in this work we have undertaken together in the light of Mr Monti’s clear, comprehensive and painstaking examination of the internal market, in the light of Mr Grech’s report, which you adopted by a very large majority, and at a time when, if we are listening attentively to the citizens in each of our Member States, we need to take stock of where we are going in terms of growth, employment and social cohesion.
For each of these levers, for example, mobility, financing of small businesses, intellectual property, taxes, public services, or social cohesion, we will propose a key action that will be new, that we hope will be effective for businesses and citizens, and that will be deliverable within two years. Deliverable means that the Commission will table it and that Parliament and the Council will be able to vote on it and adopt it in 2011 and 2012.
It will be the 20th anniversary of the Single Market Act and the Single Market in 2012. If we understand rightly what Europeans are saying to us, we have no right, honourable Members, to allow this anniversary to be a nostalgic or melancholic one. It must be a proactive anniversary, one that boosts growth, and this is how we want to celebrate it through the Single Market Act.
We will have 12 levers: 12 specific but not exclusive proposals. For each of these levers, we will have identified other ideas, actions and proposals that the Commission will develop at the same time, but there will be 12 key actions that will symbolise this work. I hope that the European Council at the highest level, the Parliament that you represent, the Commission for our part, and the Hungarian Presidency – which I thank, Mrs Győri, for its involvement – will be in a position to undertake, somewhat solemnly we hope, before the end of June or July, to deliver this Single Market Act. Mr President, that is all I am able to say on this matter.
You asked me to talk about one of these aspects in a Commission statement. I would like to do that now, in order to leave time for the debate later. This aspect, found in the Single Market Act, relates to 17% of the European economy, namely, public procurement and public contracts. I would also like to say a few words on the four projects we are undertaking with you on public contracts, as highlighted in the Buşoi report.
The first project is the general revision of the 2004 directives aimed at guaranteeing best use of public funds, enabling as many businesses as possible to participate in public procurement contracts and ensuring that high quality products and services can be purchased with less red tape. In practical terms, I would like to simplify the procedures and make them more flexible, and also to look at how we might cater for the specific needs of small local authorities, for example, by making simplified procedures available to them. Secondly, I would like to make access to public contracts easier, especially in terms of cross-border participation by small and medium-sized enterprises. Finally, I would like to encourage in every way possible, as stressed by the Committee chair, Mr Harbour, and your committee, more responsible and more environmentally aware, or greener procurement that also promotes innovation or social inclusion.
The various reform objectives will now be translated into simple, more balanced rules. We have carried out, but not completed, a very extensive consultation and economic evaluation on the ground. We have a Green Paper and we are currently looking for the most effective proposals. The laws will not cover everything. At the same time, the Commission will work on sector-based initiatives aimed at making better use of public contracts, and at promoting objectives such as those contained in the Europe 2020 strategy. These will range from updating the Handbook on green public procurement, which I am preparing with my colleague, Mr Potočnik, to implementation of the European Energy Efficiency Plan, which we are working on with Mr Oettinger or Mrs Hedegaard, or promoting pre-commercial procurement plans and plans for innovative purchasing activities generally, which we are coordinating together with Mr Tajani and Mrs Geoghegan-Quinn. That is the first project.
The second project involves concessions. I would like to make tangible progress quickly on the issue of concessions, without waiting for this long-term work on modernising the public procurement framework to be completed. Ladies and gentlemen, concessions play an increasingly important part in the creation of public service provision infrastructure. Sixty per cent of public/private partnerships in Europe operate through concessions.
Apart from public works concessions, however, at present there is no European law on concessions, and even though the general principles of the Treaty are applicable, there is real legal uncertainty in this area, which is preventing this type of contract from developing. As proof of this, I could mention the 24 judgments by the Court of Justice in recent years. I would like to propose the creation of a simplified framework, limited to certain basic rules, which will not interfere with national legislative frameworks when they are working well. It will not impose an excessive administrative burden on local authorities, primarily because of the thresholds that I will be proposing.
I know that there are doubts and debates going on in several of your groups. For my part, I am convinced, in listening to everyone, that if we set our goals carefully, we will be able to avoid misunderstandings. Public authorities will still be free to organise public services themselves, but if they do decide to outsource them, I do not think anyone will object to a basic level of transparency and rules that ensure there is no discrimination. I believe this is essential in order to optimise the use of public money, reduce the practice of awarding contracts without adequate publicity or without effective right of recourse, and to reduce certain risks of corruption.
From the enterprises’ point of view, if we are trying to revive the internal market, who can object to the idea of putting it into practice in the area of concessions? I am thinking, in particular, of small and medium-sized enterprises which do not currently have the resources that large enterprises have for identifying and winning contracts abroad if they are not published. Having a minimal framework on concessions will mean transparency and information, and will thus make it easier for the smallest enterprises to gain access to some of the contracts. It is also a question of better regulation. Targeted, well thought-out legislation is a better option that will cost less than trying to sort out problems simply through the rule on violations.
What messages are people getting from Brussels and Strasbourg? At the moment, the messages are necessary, but they are always difficult or restrictive. They are messages about regulation, or, as in the case of my job, about governance, supervision, deficit and debt reduction. They are essential messages therefore, but restrictive and difficult. I believe we need to add other messages and, above all, other actions to them in order to restore confidence in the European project, and in the reasons why we should all pull together instead of standing alone or doing things alone to tackle the challenges of globalisation.
The third project, which I will talk about quickly, concerns the European defence market. We will work with Member States in connection with the implementation of the 2009 directive, for which the transposition time limit runs out in a few weeks. It is a question of adapting payment policies, which often conflict with EU law. Together with Mr Tajani, I will organise a conference on this issue of the European defence industry market at the Brussels Parliament buildings on 23 May.
Finally, I would like to quickly raise an issue that has been set aside for too long, namely, the international dimension of public contracts. The aim is clear: increased access to markets for our enterprises, and we too are naturally ready to offer more, in a spirit of mutual reciprocity and benefit. More trade will benefit all.
Now, I must draw attention to a problem that we currently have in connection with this basis of open trade and the benefits associated with it. The truth is that our main partners – the United States, Japan, under the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA), and China, under a bilateral agreement – do not really want to commit to opening up their markets further. For our part, we do not have any real levers for negotiation, insofar as our own markets are already considered, virtually as a matter of course, as being open. Ladies and gentlemen, the international undertakings under the GPA and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreements have not yet been transposed into EU law.
Against this background, Member States apply the rules in very different ways, and that distorts the internal market. At present in Europe, therefore, our enterprises are suffering from an inequitable situation – I remember the case of motorways in Poland. Foreign enterprises enjoy very wide access here in Europe, often going well beyond what the EU has negotiated, whereas our own enterprises encounter difficulties if they try to participate in procurement contracts of some of our major partners.
That is why this year, with my colleague, Mr De Gucht, we are planning to table legislation that will transpose our international obligations on public procurement contracts into EU law, and this will give us the lever for negotiation that we need. We are in favour of openness, but we do not advocate gullibility. It is a question of giving European purchasers a sound, clear legal basis for dealing with bids from enterprises from a country with which we have an agreement differently than with those from a country with which the EU does not yet have an agreement, and of providing greater legal certainty. Let me be clear: it is not a question of turning Europe into a fortress. We must create an environment for our enterprises that is realistic, fair and open, but not naive.
There we are. As you and your Parliament requested of me, Mr President, I wanted to take the opportunity of this debate on reviving the internal market to bring up this important area which will, moreover, constitute one of the 12 levers for reviving the Single Market that I referred to at the beginning of my speech, namely, that of public procurement and the modernisation that we are going to propose in agreement with you in the next few weeks.
That is what is really at the heart of our work, and I would like to personally thank our three rapporteurs who have just spoken: Mrs Kalniete, Mr Correia de Campos and, a moment ago, Mr Buşoi. I would also like to thank the Chair, Mr Harbour, who, as has already been mentioned, has succeeded with great efficiency and by listening very carefully in setting nearly 11 parliamentary committees to work in a very short space of time. I would also like to add to these thanks my gratitude to the coordinators of the different political groups, because you had a great many matters to coordinate between you, given the large number of issues we have covered. By doing this, you will be sending a very strong signal to the other institutions, and also to businesses and citizens.
Following on from the Monti report and the Grech report, President Barroso asked me to work with 12 of my colleagues, as a joint task within the college, on reviving the internal market and on the structural reforms that will be required so that the two, three or four points of growth which the market contains can emerge.
I would remind you, ladies and gentlemen, that in this big market, which, moreover, constitutes the basis of the European political project, 60% of our exports go to the other 26 Member States. Each country, from Germany the biggest, down to the smallest of our countries, exports, on average, 60% of its goods and services just next door to the large market itself. It is thought that there is still more potential growth in this market if it functions more efficiently. That is how the Single Market Act came into being. That is how we identified the 50 proposals contained in this little Blue Paper that I sent to all your countries, in the 23 EU languages, to every national MP, trade union and professional organisation.
We then spent time in our discussions to choose from those proposals the ones that will be most effective in improving life for businesses and citizens. On Wednesday of next week therefore, the college will debate the Single Market Act in the wake of these discussions, before taking action and in the light of your deliberation and debates today.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is my firm belief that every region is needed, every business is needed and every citizen is needed in order to win the battle for competitiveness and growth. Every region: this is why, right at the beginning of the Single Market and the Single Market Act, the President of the Commission, Jacques Delors, wanted to support the construction of the Single Market with a cohesion policy so that even regions that are behind in terms of development can also take part in the battle for growth and competitiveness: all regions, including the most distant, outermost regions. Every business is needed when it comes to innovating or creating – the patents we are pushing through come to mind – when it comes to small and medium-sized enterprises obtaining financing and having less administrative complexity and red tape to deal with, when it comes to trading securely online, and when it comes to participating in public procurement, which I will return to in a moment.
Every region, every business, every citizen is needed. In our daily lives, we are all, by turns, consumers, service users, savers, shareholders, workers, craft workers, and the objective is that cross-border mobility should be made easier, that professional qualifications, skills and welfare rights should be respected and recognised, that we should be able to access high quality public services, that we should feel safe and protected when we buy products over the Internet or in any other way, and that we should not be taxed twice. Those are just a few examples that we must deal with in order to make the internal market work more effectively.
What is the next step now after your debate? On 24 and 25 March, the European Council welcomed this action we have taken and the action it has taken itself in terms of joint legislation. We were asked to decide on priorities and therefore, as I have said, together with my colleagues, who have worked so hard and whom I thank, next week, I shall propose that the college choose 12 levers which will make the internal market work more effectively for businesses and citizens."@en1
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