European Directives
National and regional administrations with their related organisations in Europe have to apply common rules for the purchase of products and services and for tendering of public works contracts. This includes ministries, municipalities, police, hospitals, universities and public utility companies.
A market of more than 1,000 billion euro per year.
The following directives (laws) of the European Union do apply:
- 2004/18/EC, construction, supplies and services
- 2004/17/EC, supplies, works and services in the utilities sectors
Basically the directives specify that in general uniform open procedures and that non-discriminating criteria must be used for selecting and awarding public contracts. Negotiating procedures can only be applied in exceptional circumstances. Technical specifications must refer to European standards, which on their turn often are based on ISO-standards. Selection is made on basis of economic and financial feasibility of the company concerned and its technical abilities and experience. Contracts can be awarded to either the company with the lowest price or the most favourable offer. The criteria must be published beforehand and strictly applied. Public procurement contracts with an estimated value above the thresholds, have to be published in the Official Journal of the European Union. This OJ is available on internet.
Companies from all Member States of the European Union and from Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, are free to participate. Most of these tenders are however also open for direct participation by companies from other countries that have signed the WTO Government Procurement Agreement (GPA). This includes the countries Switzerland, Israel, the United States of America, Canada and Japan.
Between 800 and 900 notices are published every day. More convenient is our DirecTTender® service. This is a daily e-mail service for new public procurement tenders that are selected for you from the Official Journal of the European Union in the sector that is of most interest to you.