Evaluatie Europese aanbestedingen: meer concurrentie, lagere kosten (en)
The existing EU public procurement Directives have increased cross-border competition in procurement markets and reduced by around 30% the prices paid by public authorities for goods and services, according to a European Commission working document. There remains potential for significant further opening up of procurement markets and therefore for further gains for taxpayers in terms of value for money and strengthening defences against corruption and favouritism. In a market worth over €1 500 billion, i.e. over 16% of total EU GDP, the consequence of such improvements could be enormous. The legislative package, now approved by both the European Parliament and the EU's Council of Ministers (see IP/04/150), modernises and simplifies procurement procedures, for example by facilitating electronic procurement. Its rapid implementation should iron out many remaining difficulties identified by contractors and contracting authorities and further boost cross-border competition.
Internal Market Commissioner Frits Bolkestein said: "This study provides conclusive further evidence that EU laws opening up procurement markets across borders have cut waste by slashing the prices central, regional and local governments pay for works, supplies and services. But there is plenty of scope for making public procurement markets even more efficient. Seizing this opportunity is crucial to Europe's competitiveness, to giving taxpayers high quality and good value for money and to creating new opportunities for EU businesses. The adoption of the legislative package after extensive negotiations is just the beginning: Member States now need to put it quickly into practice."
The existing public procurement Directives, some of which date back to the 1970s, have not only improved competition and transparency, but also increased cross border activity by requiring invitations to tender and contract award notices above a certain value ranging from approximately €150 000 for supplies and services to nearly €6 000 000 for works - to be published in the EU Official Journal. Between 1995 and 2002 the number of invitations to tender published almost doubled, from under 55 000 to over 106 000.Award notices published increased from about 28 500 per annum to about 58 500.
The application of the Directives appears to reduce prices paid by national, regional and local authorities for supplies, works and services by around 30%, even after allowing for separate reductions to unit prices caused simply by economies of scale affecting the type of bigger contract covered by the Directives.
Case studies of "typical" public procurement goods(1) show that in general, the Directives have helped to increase intra EU competition and that the prices paid by public authorities for goods traded between Member States have converged downwards over time. For instance, in the case of small iron and steel rails traded between EU countries, export price dispersion dropped from around 21% in 1988-92 to just over 7% in 1998-2002.
The six case studies also show that further savings equivalent to almost 12% of the value of intra-EU trade in the goods concerned could have been made in 1998-2002 if prices had converged to an extent that might realistically be expected in a fully open market without border or barriers. The economic significance of such price reductions across all procurement markets, which are worth €1 500 billion or 16.3% of EU GDP, would be huge.
To put this into perspective, if the performance of EU public procurement markets could be improved, increasing competition and reducing prices paid by public authorities for goods and services by 10% - which seems an entirely plausible objective in the light of the evidence in the report - no Member State's budget deficit would exceed 3% of GDP.
Transparency has undoubtedly improved as a result of the existing public procurement Directives for example the percentage of public procurement invitations to tender almost doubled from 1995 to 2002 (see above). However, there is still room for improvement at present only 16% of estimated public procurement is published in the Official Journal and transparency rates vary between Member States and for different levels of government and sectors.
New data suggest that previous studies may have underestimated the full extent of cross-border procurement. In a sample of companies involved in procurement activities, 46% of firms carried out some type of cross-border procurement. Direct cross-border procurement remains low, accounting for just 3% of the total number of bids submitted by the sample firms. On the other hand, the rate of indirect cross-border public procurement e.g. bids won by foreign firms through their local subsidiaries - is higher, accounting for 30% of the total bids included in the sample. Equally importantly, it appears that domestic firms and foreign subsidiaries are playing on a level field both have similar rates of success in bidding for contracts.
The full report, including statistical graphs, is available at:
http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/publproc/general/index.htm
(1) preparations for X-ray examinations, iron or steel railway rails, smaller rails for trams, iron and steel seamless pipes of a kind used for oil or gas pipelines, fire fighting vehicles, railway tank wagons and syringes for medical usage.