Procedure completed
Role | Committee | Rapporteur | Shadows |
---|---|---|---|
Lead | DELE | ZAPPALÀ Stefano (PPE-DE) | |
Opinion | ECON | RAPKAY Bernhard (PSE) | |
Opinion | EMPL | HUGHES Stephen (PSE) | |
Opinion | ENVI | SCHÖRLING Inger (V/ALE) | |
Opinion | ITRE | KUHNE Helmut (PSE) | |
Lead | JURI | ZAPPALÀ Stefano (PPE-DE) |
Legal Basis EC Treaty (after Amsterdam) EC 047-p2, EC Treaty (after Amsterdam) EC 055, EC Treaty (after Amsterdam) EC 095
Activites
-
2004/12/02
Final decision by Conciliation Committee
- 2004/04/30 Final act published in Official Journal
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2004/03/31
Final act signed
-
2004/03/31
End of procedure in Parliament
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2004/02/02
Decision by Council, 3rd reading
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2004/01/29
Decision by Parliament, 3rd reading
-
T5-0045/2004
summary
The European Parliament voted to approve the joint text agreed by the Conciliation Committee. (Please see the summary of 02/12/03.)�
-
T5-0045/2004
summary
- 2004/01/28 Debate in Parliament
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2003/12/09
Joint text approved by Conciliation Committee co-chairs
- 3696/2003
- 2003/12/02 Report tabled for plenary, 3rd reading
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2003/10/14
Formal meeting of Conciliation Committee
- #2528
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2003/09/29
Council Meeting
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2003/07/02
Decision by Parliament, 2nd reading
-
T5-0312/2003
summary
The European Parliament adopted some of the amendments in the report by Stefano ZAPPALA (EPP-ED, Italy) but rejected the majority. Those amendments adopted include the following: - a contract is deemed a public works contract only if its subject-matter specifically covers the execution of activities listed in Annex I, even if the contract covers the provision of other services necessary for the execution of such activities. Specific reference is made to public service contracts in the sphere of property management services which may include works; - accessibility criteria for people with disabilities must be taken into account by the contracting authority; - the electronic auction procedure is not suited to the award of works contracts or contracts for intellectual-creative and other, more complex services; - there is a definition of "particularly complex" contracts; - the confidential nature of information furnished by economic operators must be respected; - the Directive will not apply to public supply contracts involving the purchase of school books in respect of which a fixed final retail price has been laid down in the Member State in which the purchase is made; - there are specific provisions on contracts awarded to entities formed by contracting authorities; - a tender may be submitted by electronic means only if an advanced electronic signature within them meaning of Directive 1999/93/EC and a reliable means of encrypting the contents are used; - contracting authorities may operate a system for qualification of economic operators; - there are provisions for Member States to establish monitoring mechanisms.�
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T5-0312/2003
summary
- 2003/06/30 Debate in Parliament
- 2003/06/17 Vote in committee, 2nd reading
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2003/03/27
Committee referral announced in Parliament, 2nd reading
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2003/03/20
Council position published
-
11029/3/2002
summary
The Council's common position maintains the Commission's basic approach, while integrating several of the amendments adopted by the European Parliament. Some of these amendments have also been accepted by the Commission in its modified proposal. This has been done in order to accommodate several of EP's main concerns, to facilitate the practical implementation of the provisions and to introduce options for Member States. In particular, detailed provisions have been replaced by more general clauses. Links to parallel policy fields with important implications for public procurement have been strengthened or introduced, especially through a number of new or modified recitals, and some definitions and provisions have been clarified in order to avoid misunderstandings or inconsistencies. Moreover, the Council has introduced more detailed provisions on electronic auctions and dynamic acquisition systems, which are now available as methods within the existing procedures. The Council has also sought to clarify the relationship between the classical and the utilities directives by including postal services into the utilities field and adapting the provisions of this proposal accordingly. The Council has accepted several of the EP amendment and incorporated them in to the current text. Some of them have been accepted in substance, but not in exact wording. Some other amendments have rejected by the Council. The amendments introduced by the common position concern the following in particular: - greater account to be taken of the new information technologies in awarding contracts, in line with the modernisation objective set out in the Commission's proposals. In this respect, it is worth drawing attention in particular to the introduction, for purchases of commonly used items, of accelerated procurement systems intended both to provide the contracting authorities with fully-computerised systems which make it possible to simplify and automate the procurement procedures and to ensure that any interested economic operator can take part, where appropriate, by using his electronic catalogue. Moreover, as regards the general framework for purchases using electronic means, the common position clarifies the position on electronic auctions and strengthens the obligations with regard to confidentiality in the text referring to Annex X; - with regard to taking account of environmental and social aspects, the Council accepted the Commission's amended proposals subsequent to Parliament's amendments and, in addition, clarifies how environmental and social concerns can be taken into consideration when assessing the tenders at the contract award stage; - the implementation of the exclusions deriving from the personal situation of economic operators is clarified by laying down the powers of the Member States to adopt the conditions under which the exclusions apply. In the case of mandatory exclusion, its implementation is improved through cooperation between the Member States. Account is also taken of situations in which imperative requirements in the general interest could not be satisfied if the exclusion obligation were maintained; - in view of the process of opening up postal services to competition currently under way at Community level, a mechanism has been introduced for transferring the contracts awarded bypostal operators for the exercise of certain of their activities from the scope of the "classic" Directive to that of the "utilities" Directive. On the other hand, the common position has introduced changes concerning financial services, cases in which a negotiated procedure is used, and the weighting of the award criteria: - the common position gives a definition of "service concessions" with a view to the exclusion explicitly set out in the new Article 17. This definition is modelled on that for public works concessions and is intended to clarify the exclusion of service concessions; - concerning financial services, the common position specifies that in compliance with the Agreement on public procurement signed within the WTO, the financial services referred to in the Directive do not include the instruments of other policies which involve operations on securities or other financial instruments, and in particular operations to provide the contracting authorities with money or capital; - the common position introduces new cases of negotiated procedures without prior publication of a notice. This involves supplies of raw materials quoted and purchased on a commodity market, as already provided for by Directive 77/62/EEC, and supplies on particularly advantageous terms resulting from situations clearly regulated in the Member States; - the obligation to indicate the weighting of the award criteria is confirmed; however, the Commission has agreed on the need to take account of cases in which the contracting authority can justify its having been unable to specify the weighting - in particular in the case of especially complex contracts - and to allow it in such cases simply to indicate the descending order of importance of such criteria. Several statements were included in the Council's minutes. They come from the Commission as well as the Belgian, French, Austrian, Portuguese, Greek and Danish delegations.�
-
11029/3/2002
summary
- #2426
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2002/05/21
Council Meeting
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2002/05/06
Modified legislative proposal published
-
COM(2002)0236
summary
Of the 103 amendments proposed by Parliament the European Commission is able to accept 63 in full or in part. The rest are rejected. The more substantive amendments accepted in full include inter alia, those: - laying down rules relating to the method used for calculating the price/real cost of a tender. - the addition of services provided by engineers. - requiring contracting authorities to use EMAS certificates, certificates attesting to compliance with international standards, as well as any other equivalent means of proof, when requesting environmental data. The more substantive amendments accepted in part or in spirit by the Commission include, in summary: - the integration of environmental policies in public procurement contracts. - the definition of a "purchasing group", to include works, supplies and/or services. - concerning a new "competitive dialogue" procedure, the Commission has incorporated Parliamentary changes with some modifications. New provisions include, for example, allowing contracting authorities the discretion to specify prices and payments to those who submit a proposal - and not 15% of the contact's estimated value, as originally proposed by Parliament. - contract performance conditions and compliance with social protection provisions have been incorporated into the revised text. - most changes to the text on "abnormally low tenders" have been incorporated since they add clarification to the legal text. - criminals found guilty of corruption and/or of fraud are to be excluded from participation in contracts. - reverse auctions for electronic tendering should not rely solely on the lowest price tendered as originally proposed by Parliament. Rather, the Commission has adopted the Council's approach, whereby the scope of the auctions has to be widened to include variables other than price. Further, Parliamentary proposals to award a contract by electronic auction through a separate procedure is rejected by the Commission since it runs against the underlying principles of the revised Directive, namely a simplification of legal procedures. - the definition of a framework contract is to be aligned to those set out in the "Utilities Directive". - the Commission has accepted stricter guidelines on the issue of confidentiality clauses whilst taking into account the need to balance provisions on transparency and competition. - on the question of "threshold limits", the Commission suggests that it would be wrong to limit this principle to "public service" contracts only, as Parliamentary amendments propose. Nor would it be appropriate to implement the obligation of transparency solely to the "relevant provisions of the Directive" again as Parliamentary amendments imply. This would create too much legal uncertainty and go beyond compliance with the rules of the Treaty. Hence the Commission has changed the recital by including that "These principles shall apply whatever the value of the contracts". - on the related matter of estimating the value of service contracts, the Commission incorporates Parliamentary amendmentsby means of a reformulation. The Commission aims to simplify the text by merging the four articles relating to calculation methods. Thus there would be new articles for "framework agreements", a new article for "supplies", a new article for "services" and a new article for "works". - a provision on the harmonisation of language versions has been added to the text in line with Parliamentary wishes. The Commission has, however, aligned this provision to conform with the principle of the free movement of goods. - the Commission has incorporated an amendment relating to service contracts awarded on the basis of an exclusive right. This it has done in order to bring it in line with current case law, namely the "Teckel" judgement. Reformulation is necessary so as to take up the elements covered by the judgment, adapt them to the situation of a group of contract authorities and accommodate them in the appropriate place in the Directive. - the Commission accepts an amendment to allow contracting authorities the right to negotiate a contract without prior publication in cases such as unforeseen circumstances or, for example, where additional works cannot be technically or economically separated from the main work without major inconvenience. - the Commission has taken on board changes which clarify requirements relating to the selection of participants in that they must be proportionate to the subject matter of the contract. - accepted, subject to some changes, are amendments proposing compulsory exclusions for money laundering. - the Commission has not accepted in full Parliamentary proposals to exclude economic operators found guilty of violating international core labour standards or infringements of "fundamental" European legislation. This is already covered in existing legislation and thus considered superfluous. - the Commission has clarified the provisions relating to various types of electronic submissions. Not accepted by the Commission are amendments which relate, in summary, to: - obliging contracting authorities, in the absence of European specification, to lay down precise national criteria in advance. - the regulation in framework agreement of translation and interpretation provisions. - modifications to the definition of "design contests". - provisions to increase the thresholds indicated in the Commission's proposal by around 50%. The thresholds in the Directives in force are such that Community Regulations cover only the biggest contracts in value terms. Raising the thresholds of the Directive would lead to an unjustified reduction in the guarantees concerning the opening-up of public contracts currently offered to economic operators in the European Union. Furthermore, a unilateral raising of the thresholds by the EU would be incompatible with its obligations under WTO agreements. - an exclusion concerning transactions enabling the contracting authority to contract borrowing intended for investments and cash flow requirements. - obliging contract authorities to ask the tenderer to indicate the share of the contract he may intend to subcontract to third parties and any designated subcontractors. - obliging contracting authorities to prohibit any subcontracting to undertakings. - prohibit the contracting out of "intellectual services". - prohibiting the use of framework agreements for works contracts. Since this include "standard" works such as road surfacing or repairs this amendment is deemed unacceptable. - an extension of procedures relating to "public housing" to include all "public works which, for reasons of size, complexity and duration and/or financing, require collaborative project planning". This amendment is considered wholly unacceptable in that it may allow for very vague contract negotiations. - the provision that tenders submitted by electronic means should be rejected unless an advanced electronic signature within the meaning of Directive 199/93/EC and reliable means of encrypting contents are used. - prohibiting any economic operators who are bankrupt from applying for contracts has been rejected on the grounds that certain companies would not be given any chance to apply. Such a policy could automatically condemn them to closure. Rather the Commission, finds it more appropriate to make the exclusion of operators in this situation an option for purchasers and not an obligation. - provisions for the setting up of an independent Public Procurement Agency vested with broad powers, including the power to set aside contract awards and to reopen contract award procedures. The Commission argues that the obligations introduced by this amendments is already the subject of Community legislation in force and need not be reiterated here. �
- DG [{'url': 'http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/internal_market/', 'title': 'Internal Market and Services'}],
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COM(2002)0236
summary
- #2412
- 2002/03/01 Council Meeting
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2002/01/17
Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading
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T5-0010/2002
summary
The European Parliament approved the report by Mr Stefano ZAPPALA (EPP-ED, I) by 370 to 82 with 26 abstentions. (Please refer to the decision of the committee responsible 16/10/01).�
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T5-0010/2002
summary
- #2389
- 2001/11/26 Council Meeting
- 2001/10/16 Vote in committee, 1st reading/single reading
- #2371
- 2001/09/27 Council Meeting
- #2351
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2001/05/30
Council Meeting
-
2351
summary
The Council took note of a progress report on this dossier. It welcomed the progress which had been achieved so far and confirmed its intention to continue to give high priority to this file with a view to reaching an agreement within the timeframe set by the European Council. During its discussions so far, the Council has focused more on the present decision, but the results of those discussions have helped to achieve progress with the proposal for a Utilities Directive. The discussions during the Swedish Presidency have touched upon most questions, but particular attention has been paid to the rules on electronic procurement and the so called competitive dialogue that would be used in connection with particularly complex contracts. �
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2351
summary
- #X014
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2001/03/12
Council Meeting
- #X013
- 2000/11/30 Council Meeting
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2000/09/04
Committee referral announced in Parliament, 1st reading/single reading
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2000/05/10
Legislative proposal published
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COM(2000)0275
summary
PURPOSE: to amend the Directive on the coordination of procedures for the award of public supply contracts, public service contracts and public works contracts. CONTENT: In 1996, the Commission presented a Communication entitled 'Public Procurement in the European Union (EU)'. The main theme to emerge from the Green Paper debate was the need to simplify the legal framework and adapt it to the new electronic age while maintaining the stability of its basic structure. The Commission recognised the need to simplify the existing legal framework by clarifying provisions which were obscure or complex and by amending legislation where the problems to be addressed could not be solved through interpretation of the provisions. In addition, it announced the consolidation of the three 'classic Directives' (Directive 92/50/EEC, Directive 93/36/EEC and Directive 93/38/EEC) and then their merger into a single text. Against this background, the proposal for a Directive meets these objectives. Moreover, the proposed amendments to the Directive are grouped into two parts as follows: 1) Simplification of the Directive. This proposal is presented in the form of a single text for supply, works and service contracts. At the same time, it provides a means of proposing that the public sector Directives mentioned above, be amended, simplified and combined in a single text. This approach will make it easier to maintain consistency during the legislative process, and also offers real advantages for users. As far as the structure is concerned, the provisions in the proposed Directives have been set out in six Titles. In these Titles, and particularly in Title II with regard to the specific rules applicable to contracts, the provisions have been ordered in such a way as to follow logically the course of a contract award procedure, starting with the principles and the scope. Chapters and Sections have been introduced to make it easier for the reader. In addition, each Chapter, Section and Article has a heading for quicker identification of the provisions sought by the reader. 2) Substantive Amendments The Commission has identifed seven areas for substantive amendments as follows: - the introduction of electronic purchasing mechanisms, and their consequences in terms of reducing the length of an award procedure (point 2); - the introduction of a new case for the use of the negotiated procedure, which - for particularly complex contracts - permits a "dialogue" between the contractng authority and the different candidates, while ensuring that there is competition and compliance with the principle of equality of treatment (point 3); - the possibility for public purchasers of concluding so-called "framework agreements", not all of whose conditions are fixed, and on the basis of which contracts can be awarded without applying all the obligations of the Directive (point 4) to each one; - clarification of provisions relating to technical specifications; this will encourage effective competition through the participation of the greatest possible number oftenderers and, in particular, innovative businesses (point 5); - a strengthening of the provisions relating to award and selection criteria (point 6); - a simplification of the thresholds (point 7) - the introduction of a common procurement vocabulary (point 8). Moreover, following the amendments proposed by the Commission concerning the "Utilities Directive" 93/38/EEC coordinating the procurement procedures of entities operating in the water, energy, transport and telecommunications sectors, in particular the amendments to its scope in light of the gradual liberalisation in those sectors, it is also necessary to amend some provisions contained in the public sectors Directive (point 9).�
- DG [{'url': 'http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/internal_market/', 'title': 'Internal Market and Services'}],
-
COM(2000)0275
summary
Documents
- Legislative proposal published: COM(2000)0275
- Debate in Council: X013
- Debate in Council: 2351
- Debate in Council: 2371
- Committee report tabled for plenary, 1st reading/single reading: A5-0378/2001
- Debate in Council: 2389
- Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading: T5-0010/2002
- Debate in Council: 2412
- Modified legislative proposal published: COM(2002)0236
- Council position published: 11029/3/2002
- Committee recommendation tabled for plenary, 2nd reading: A5-0242/2003
- Debate in Parliament: Debate in Parliament
- Decision by Parliament, 2nd reading: T5-0312/2003
- Report tabled for plenary, 3rd reading: A5-0007/2004
- Joint text approved by Conciliation Committee co-chairs: 3696/2003
- Debate in Parliament: Debate in Parliament
- Decision by Parliament, 3rd reading: T5-0045/2004
- : Directive 2004/18
- : OJ L 134 30.04.2004, p. 0114-0240
History
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