Activites

• 1998/04/01 Final act published in Official Journal
  • Directive 1998/4
  • OJ L 101 01.04.1998, p. 0001
• 1998/02/16 Final act signed
• 1998/02/16 End of procedure in Parliament
• 1997/12/16 Decision by Parliament, 3rd reading
  • T4-0603/1997 summary

    In adopting the report by Mr Werner LANGEN (EPP, D), Parliament approved the joint text of the Directive, approved by the Conciliation Committee, amending the 1993 Directive coordinating the procurement procedures of entities operating in the water, energy, transport and telecommunications sectors. �

• #2061
• 1997/12/15 Council Meeting
• 1997/12/15 Debate in Parliament
  • Debate in Parliament
• 1997/12/04 Report tabled for plenary, 3rd reading
  • A4-0398/1997
• 1997/11/26 Joint text approved by Conciliation Committee co-chairs
  • 3628/1997
• 1997/11/06 Formal meeting of Conciliation Committee
• #2025
• 1997/07/22 Council Meeting
• 1997/05/14 Decision by Parliament, 2nd reading
  • T4-0227/1997 summary

    The European Parliament adopted the recommendation for second reading by Mr Werner LANGEN (PPE, D). Since Parliament's concerns had been taken into account by the Commission in its amended proposal of 20 November 1996, Parliament approved the common position. It presented only five amendments aimed at specifically exempting private businesses from certain obligations with regard to providing information and statistics. It took the view that additional obligations for the private sector should be rejected since the GATT agreement on government procurement is only binding on public contracting bodies. �

• 1997/05/13 Debate in Parliament
  • Debate in Parliament summary

    Commissioner Monti explained why he could not agree with Parliament’s position in all the cases where the amendments tabled diverged from the common position. This was because these amendments would either call into question the structure and logical basis of the Community arrangements or would be too mutually contradictory. For these reasons, he rejected Amendments Nos 3, 4 and 5 which violated the principle of equal treatment through which Community legislation avoided creating any forms of discrimination between Member States based on different administration models (whether or not public) in the same market sector. Furthermore, as regards the ‘technical dialogue’, the Commissioner also could not accept Amendments Nos 1 and 6 which tackled this issue in an inconsistent manner. He considered that the common position adopted an intermediate solution in between the irreconcilable texts of the two proposed amendments and specifically allowed a certain amount of consistency to be maintained between the texts of the four directives on the public contract sectors.

• 1997/04/22 Vote in committee, 2nd reading
  • A4-0159/1997
• 1997/02/18 Committee referral announced in Parliament, 2nd reading
• #1983
• 1996/12/20 Council Meeting
  • 11543/2/1996 summary

    The Council common position endeavoured to limit its amendments to Directive 93/38/EEC to what was strictly necessary in order to comply with the Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA), while taking care to ensure that this amendment did not endanger equal treatment for contracting bodies from the public and private sectors. The Council introduced new provisions in the common position which: - stipulate that the GPA has no direct effect in the Community; - stress that contracting authorities which comply with the basic directive (Directive 93/38/EEC), as amended by the present directive, are in compliance with the GPA; - add information about what does not fall within the scope of the GPA but is included in the field of application of Directive 93/38/EEC; - recall the fact implicit in the principles of Community law on public procurement, of Article IV(4) of the GPA, whereby contracting bodies cannot accept technical assistance when this would have the effect of preventing competition; - delete the reference to Spain, since it has abandoned the idea of an extended deadline for the implementation of the directive on its territory. The other changes made by the Council concern the following points, inter alia: - the scope of the directive: differentiated thresholds have been established for contracts covered by the GPA (expressed in SDRs) and for those not covered by the GPA (expressed in ECU); - the information to be supplied when periodic indicative notices are used as a means of competitive bidding: the provisions of the common position are in line with Article IX, paragraphs 4 and 6 of the GPA, which gives a list of the detailed information relating to the contract in question to be supplied in the periodic opinions; - the confidentiality of certain information on the awarding of contracts: the subject of prices is added to the information whose sensitive commercial nature the Commission must respect; - the deadlines for receipt of tenders: the deadlines for receipt of tenders have been made more flexible in cases where a periodic indicative notice has been published in advance; in addition, the deadlines have been changed slightly so that they are calculated from the date of the notice being sent, and not from the date of its publication; - information to be sent to unsuccessful applicants and tenderers: the obligation to provide information for unsuccessful candidates is limited to contracting bodies operating in the sectors covered by the GPA; - statistical obligations: the common position does not give details of all the information which must be included in annual statistics, but leaves it to the Commission, in consultation with the Advisory Committee for Public Contracts, to decide on the content of the statistics. Service contracts not covered by the GPA are exempted from the statistical obligations and are comprehensively listed; - entry into force: the date of entry into force is twelve months after adoption of the directive. Regarding transmission of tenders, the common position allows Member States to decide whether written confirmation of requests made electronically is necessary. It also allows the Member States to authorize submission of tenders by more appropriate means, bearing in mind technological progress in document transmission. However, guarantees relating to content, confidentiality, proof and the opening of tenders are required. A joint Council and Commission declaration accompanies this provision: it stresses that tenders must remain secret until the date set for opening them. �

• #1970
• 1996/11/26 Council Meeting
• 1996/11/20 Modified legislative proposal published
  • COM(1996)0598 summary

    Though the Commission did not accept the idea of a separate Directive transposing the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) it nevertheless examined with Parliament the possibility of improving its proposal. The principal changes introduced in the modified proposals are as follows: - a clarification of the fields of application of the GPA and the Directives as well as a clear statement as to the legal regime applicable to third country companies; - the changes to the thresholds have been limited to the contracts and sectors which are subject to the GPA; - the obligation to inform eliminated candidates or tenderers of the reasons for their rejection and eliminated tenderers of the characteristics and advantages of the tender selected has been limited to the sectors covered by the GPA; - the amendments to the model notices, and in particular the notice on the existence of a qualification system and the periodic information notice, have been limited to what is explicitly required by the GPA as is the case regarding the information to be provided by contracting entities when they invite candidates to confirm their interest following publication of a periodic indicative notice used as a means of calling for competition; - the introduction of an obligation on the Commission to respect the commercially sensitive nature of information communicated by contracting entities in notices on contracts awarded and concerning prices. �

• 1996/10/22 Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading
  • T4-0505/1996 summary

    In adopting the report by Mr Werner LANGEN (PPE, D), Parliament confirmed the rejection of the proposal for a Directive. It called on the Commission to withdraw its proposal and to replace it with a new one aimed at the transposition of the Agreement on Government Procurement by means of a specific (supplementary) directive. �

• 1996/07/16 Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading
  • T4-0393/1996 summary

    In adopting the report by Mr Werner LANGEN (PPE, D), Parliament rejected the proposal to amend Directive 93/38/EEC and, under Rule 59(3) of its Rules of Procedure, referred the report back to committee. �

• 1996/07/15 Debate in Parliament
  • Debate in Parliament summary

    The rapporteur, Mr LANGEN (EPP, D), said that Parliament recognised the crucial importance of the agreement on public contracts. However, he thought that it was not an adequate approach to implement the agreement by way of an amendment of the existing Directives. The proposal failed to indicate with sufficient clarity the domains that were excluded from the scope of the agreement or the specific provisions applying to those contracts and sectors that could be classified as public. The rapporteur thought that in order to guarantee a sufficient level of precision in this area a new directive should be adopted that clearly incorporated the specific exceptions and regulations. He therefore proposed to reject the proposal for an amendment of the Directive and called on the Commission to present a new text. Commissioner MONTI stressed that the agreement on public tendering did not require any special legal arrangements for application in the Community. Moreover, the only amendments that had been introduced in order to provide for the consistent application of the agreement did not constitute a unilateral opening of public contracts to third-country companies. The Commissioner regretted that the negotiations with Parliament had not concluded by reaching a consensus on the proposals. However, the Commission intended to draft an amended proposal that would take Parliament’s concerns into account.

• 1996/01/24 Vote in committee, 1st reading/single reading
  • A4-0022/1996
• #1886
• 1995/11/23 Council Meeting
  • 1886 summary

    The Council reached a preliminary position on certain key questions relating to the amendment of Community Directives on public contracts in the light of the Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA) resulting from the Uruguay Round. The Council’s common position will be adopted after examination of any amendments proposed by the European Parliament. The GPA will apply in the Community as from 1 January 1996 without the need for any transposing act. In order to avoid the coexistence of differing Community and international rules, adoption by the Council of the Directives in question is a matter of urgency.

• 1995/05/16 Committee referral announced in Parliament, 1st reading/single reading
• 1995/03/29 Legislative proposal published
  • COM(1995)0107 summary

    OBJECTIVE: to amend the directive on the water, energy, transport and telecommunications sectors in order to bring them into line with the new GATT agreement extending the current framework of balanced rights and obligations with regard to public procurement. CONTENT: the proposal for a directive makes provision for the following amendments: - Scope: the distinction between telecommunications and the other sectors covered has been maintained. In addition, the thresholds which currently apply to the telecommunications sector (ECU 5,000,000 for works contracts and ECU 600,000 for supply and service contracts) have been left unchanged. As far as the other sectors are concerned, (water, energy, transport), it is proposed to replace: . for works contracts: the threshold of ECU 5,000,000 by the equivalent in ECU of SDR 5,000,000 (ECU 4,952,730 on 1 January 1994) and . for supply and service contracts: the threshold of ECU 400,000 by the equivalent in ECU of SDR 400,000 (ECU 396,218 on 1 January 1994). - Possible assistance in preparing technical specifications: a new provision prohibits the public authorities from asking for or accepting assistance in drawing up specifications from a company with a commercial interest in the contract or where this might obstruct the competition. - Information for candidates rejected: if an enterprise so requests, the contracting authority must tell it why it was rejected and what advantages the tender selected presents, unless there is legitimate cause not to divulge this information. - A provision has been introduced in order to guarantee permanent access to the system of qualifications. - Negotiated procedures without prior competition for additional works or services may only be used up to 50% of the value of the initial contract; - Deadlines for the receipt of tenders in restricted or negotiated procedures: a deadline of at least 40 days from the date of the invitation to tender has been introduced. - The obligations of the Member States as regards the provision of statistics have been changed. Statistics must be provided on contracts which exceed the stated thresholds. It is proposed to limit the obligation for statistics to sectors covered by the GATT agreement and to exclude the RDT or "residual service" contracts listed in Anne XVI B to the directive. However, it is proposed that information should be provided on all categories of contracting entities operating in the sectors in question. - Finally, a new article guarantees that access for the Member States' enterprises, products and services to public procurement within the EU will be at least as favourable as the access for which provision is made in the GATT agreement for the enterprises, products and services of the third countries which have signed the agreement.�

Documents

• Legislative proposal published: COM(1995)0107
• Debate in Council: 1886
• Committee report tabled for plenary, 1st reading/single reading: A4-0022/1996
• Debate in Parliament: Debate in Parliament
• Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading: T4-0393/1996
• Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading: T4-0505/1996
• Modified legislative proposal published: COM(1996)0598
• Council position published: 11543/2/1996
• Committee recommendation tabled for plenary, 2nd reading: A4-0159/1997
• Debate in Parliament: Debate in Parliament
• Decision by Parliament, 2nd reading: T4-0227/1997
• Joint text approved by Conciliation Committee co-chairs: 3628/1997
• Report tabled for plenary, 3rd reading: A4-0398/1997
• Debate in Parliament: Debate in Parliament
• Decision by Parliament, 3rd reading: T4-0603/1997
• : Directive 1998/4
• : OJ L 101 01.04.1998, p. 0001

History

(these mark the time of scraping, not the official date of the change)