European Procurement is a centralized system of notification of public procurement of all supplies, services, and works by government bodies in the European Union (formerly known as the EEC) has been in existence since before 1992. Public procurement is regulated at a European level by Directive 2004/18 which is implemented in the national laws of each member State. It is estimated that up to 16% of the region's GDP falls within this category.[1]

The procedure is intended to be fully transparent with the intention of creating a free and competitive Europe-wide market. The rules state that for projects above a certain financial threshold (about £100K) a contract notice must be published in Supplement S of the Official Journal of the European Union OJEU previously known as [OJEC S-Series]. Nowadays the information is available immediately on the web from Tenders Electronic Daily.

The buyer can advertise the contract more widely, but cannot do so before it has dispatched a notice for publication in the OJEU, and is forbidden from including information that isn't given there.

After the prescribed date, the bids as opened and assessed, and either the "lowest cost" or "most economically advantageous tender" is chosen. The contract award must also be reported in the OJEU.

The system is under constant revision to avoid misuse. Rejected bidders are up to ten days to challenge a decision, and the European Commission routinely acts to police infringements.[2]

Contents 1 Framework agreements 2 Procedures 3 Wikipedia links 4 External links

[edit] Framework agreements

In recent years there has shift in the system to allow it to handle the awarding of framework agreements. These are not in themselves procurement contracts, but they set out the terms of such contract with suppliers in advance over a set time. For example, if dozens of independent schools in the UK all wish to buy computer equipment, Becta is able to award a framework agreement to a set of companies so that, if they buy from the list, they don't need to go through the full European Procurement process.

The current regulation in the UK is published in Statutory Instrument 2006 No. 5 (section 19) The Public Contracts Regulations 2006

[edit] Procedures

There are several different procedures available for public authorities. These include the Open, Restricted, Negotiated and Competitive Dialogue procedures. Each of these procedures sets its own limitations on the procuring authority, which must be considered when choosing the appropriate procedure.

[edit] Wikipedia links

• European_leaders_in_procurement
• Public eProcurement
• Government_procurement
• Russian Procurement

[edit] External links

• Strategic Sourcing | Europe (News, Methodologies, Best practices, Technologies, tools about Sourcing and Procurement)
• Internal Market public procurement
• Office of Government Commerce UK
• SIMAP