Mr President, let me also congratulate you on your election. Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too would like to start by congratulating the rapporteur on behalf of my group and thanking him and all the draftsmen of the consulting committees' opinions for the enormous work involved in this report. We have already been occupying ourselves for a long time with these two draft Directives from the Commission, a good year and a half in fact. We had a public hearing on this subject a year ago. I think the intensive discussions and the highly laborious vote in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market make it high time that we complete the first reading with the plenary vote tomorrow – which I hope will actually take place. The many amendments that we have had to deal with in Committee and, to some extent, still have to deal with in tomorrow's plenary session, do not mean that we were not in agreement with the Commission's basic premises. The consolidation of the previous Directives, and their harmonisation and modernisation, is certainly a very important step. As far as my group is concerned, in addition to a number of other important topics, some of which have already been addressed, there is a central issue on which we cannot agree with the Commission. I refer to the new criteria for the awarding of contracts, where the Commission is attempting very substantial changes in content in comparison with the former legal position, and what it is consolidating is not only current legislation. The Commission's proposal dramatically restricts the room for manoeuvre which was formerly provided for and which is still current law, and does so above all at the expense of qualitative criteria, notably those to do with social security, the environment and health. In its two interpretative statements, the Commission has itself shown how this room for manoeuvre and rearrangement can today be used without discrimination. The European Court of Justice, too, has handed down a very good and reliable interpretation of current law in indicative orders and particularly now in the final plea in the Helsinki case. The Commission appears to find the current legal position unacceptable for political reasons, and it is therefore to undergo massive alteration. A number of Members will probably be very confused at this point, as much of what the Commission thankfully sets out in its two interpretative statements will, by reason of the new legal position it has outlined, no longer be feasible if we do not vote any amendments to it tomorrow. Principals, such as municipalities for example, may now only think, in purely egotistical terms, of the immediate benefit to themselves. The economic advantage must unambiguously be the principal's. In Austria we call this the ‘Florian principle’ according to which it is better to let your neighbour's house burn down than your own. It means that factors occurring to the detriment and cost of another local or regional authority must no longer be taken into account when awarding a contract. The Commission also wants to prohibit the imposition of criteria relating to the manufacture of a product. This makes illegal, for example, an invitation to tender that specifies wood products from sustainable forestry or foodstuffs that are grown organically or derived from species-friendly animal husbandry and represents discrimination against conventional providers. This not only undermines the objectives of the Treaty, for example the integration of environmental protection into all spheres of policy, and also a policy of sustainable development, it also restricts the autonomy and democracy of cities, municipalities, regions and federal territories. We are then using EU law to prohibit a democratically elected institution such as a city or a municipality from deciding to introduce, or continue with, an environmentally friendly purchasing policy. I do not believe that this will enhance the European Union's popularity among its citizens. It is also, indeed, the perspective of Europe's cities and municipalities that leads to a majority of our Group’s advocating the raising of the threshold. Even in a small community like my own, in a country in which the climate means that building is very expensive, even the mere building of a school goes above the threshold. The costs of putting the work out to tender are significantly greater. Yet this amount cannot be cut back because it is still too low to attract tenders from other countries. It has already been emphasised that the rules of the Internal Market also apply below the threshold values. I would like, in my concluding remarks, to appeal to the Group of the European People’s Party and to change the position they adopted in committee on tendering conditions, even if only on a few points. We have brought in differing split votes on my Amendments Nos 134 and 110. I think, then, that it must be possible on this basis to further improve these points in the Commission's text. (Applause) IN THE CHAIR: MR DAVID MARTINVice-President

Political group: PSE