[international developments] p align = “center” three EU institutions reached a political agreement on the implementation of international procurement instruments
According to the official website of the European Commission, recently, the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Council reached a political agreement on the implementation of the international procurement instrument (IPI), which aims to increase the opportunities for EU companies to enter the public procurement market outside the EU. After the agreement is reached, the European Parliament and the European Council will formally adopt the revised regulations to make IPI enter into force as soon as possible.
According to the latest agreement, for countries that have not signed relevant contracts or agreements with the EU in the field of public procurement, if their enterprises participate in EU public procurement, the European Commission will take restrictive measures: first, for goods and services with a public procurement contract value of more than 5 million euros, engineering projects and franchise projects with a value of more than 15 million euros, the impact of the bidding company on society, environment The impact of labor. Second, in the evaluation and pricing stage, reverse price preferential measures shall be implemented for the bidding prices of foreign enterprises, so as to make relevant bidding lose competitive advantage with price leverage. The calculation method of price adjustment measures mentioned in the previous IPI is to make a premium (up to 20%) based on the bidder’s bid price, and use the premium price to compete with other enterprises. The premium after this agreement can be increased to 100% at most. Third, foreign bidding companies will be directly deducted during bid evaluation, and the maximum deduction proportion can reach 50% of the total score.
The European Commission has always believed that the EU public procurement market is one of the largest and most accessible markets in the world. However, many EU trading partners take restrictive measures against EU enterprises in their public procurement market, which affects the competition of EU enterprises in construction, public transport, medical equipment, power generation and pharmaceutical industries. Therefore, in March 2012, the European Commission first proposed to use IPI as a policy tool to pressure countries that have not reached an agreement with the EU in the field of public procurement to open the public procurement market to the EU through negotiation, premium, raising the bidding threshold and other measures. IPI will authorize the European Commission to determine whether or to what extent IPI measures will be taken for companies from countries that have not reached an agreement with the EU in the field of public procurement to enter the EU public procurement market according to the degree of trade barriers. In 2016, the European Commission revised the draft legislation of IPI. In 2021, 27 EU Member States reached a consensus on the application of IPI for the first time. In the same year, the European people’s Party group submitted the latest version of the draft legislation of IPI to the European Parliament and submitted it to the International Trade Committee of the European Parliament for discussion and deliberation. Recently, the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Council reached the latest political agreement on the implementation of IPI.
Valtis dongbrovskis, trade commissioner of the European Commission, said: “A level playing field is crucial to the competitiveness of EU companies. The EU will continue to support the resolution of unfair competition barriers faced by EU companies through dialogue. IPI is the last policy tool. Before its implementation, the European Commission will investigate cases suspected of restricting EU companies from public procurement markets in third countries. At the same time, the European Commission will invite relevant countries to open their public procurement markets to the EU The negotiation can finally be reached by signing a trade agreement. The existing world trade organization government procurement agreement (GPA) and other bilateral trade agreements signed by the EU promise not to be affected by IPI. “
(compiled / min Yan)
