# EUR-Lex - 52012DC0179 - EN

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# 52012DC0179

**COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS A strategy for e-procurement /* COM/2012/0179 final */**

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COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO
THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL
COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS

A strategy for e-procurement

1.           Introduction

This Communication presents the strategic
importance of electronic procurement (e-procurement)[1] and
sets out the main actions through which the Commission intends to support the
transition towards full e-procurement in the EU.

E-procurement can significantly simplify
the way procurement is conducted, reduce waste and deliver better procurement
outcomes (lower price, better quality) by stimulating greater competition
across the Single Market. It can also contribute to addressing two of the main
challenges the European economy is facing today: the need to maximise the
efficiency of public expenditure in a context of fiscal constraints and the
need to find new sources of economic growth.

Contracting authorities and entities that
have already made the transition to e-procurement commonly report savings
between 5 and 20%; experience also shows that investment costs can be rapidly
recouped. Given the size of the total procurement market in the EU, each 5%
saved could return around €100 billion to the public purse. E-procurement also
delivers significant environmental benefits by reducing paper consumption and
transport, as well as the need for costly archiving space with its attendant
energy consumption. The economic and environmental benefits of e-procurement
thus go hand-in-hand – contributing to the sustainable growth objective of the
EU 2020 Strategy. Moreover, the Digital Agenda for Europe[2] and the eGovernment Action Plan
2011 – 2015[3]
highlight the importance of connecting e-procurement capacities across the
Single Market.

Despite these undisputable benefits, the EU
is lagging behind both its own targets and internationally. E-procurement is
still used in only 5-10% of procurement procedures carried out across the EU
despite ambitious political targets.[4]
By comparison, a full online procurement market place has already been achieved
in Korea, which generated savings of US$ 4.5 billion[5] (about 8% of total annual
procurement expenditure) annually by 2007; in Brazil 80% of public procurement
is carried out electronically. The EU should act now to reap the benefits
offered by e-procurement and to avoid losing competitiveness.

The Commission has put forward an ambitious
but realistic proposal to modernise the EU's public procurement legal framework[6] as foreseen in the 2011 Single
Market Act.[7]
One objective of these proposals is to achieve a full transition to
e-procurement in the EU by mid-2016.[8]
The ultimate goal is “straight
through e-procurement” with all phases of the procedure from notification
(e-notification) to payment (e-payment) being conducted electronically.[9] This will maximise the
efficiency gains of e-procurement for the public sector and allow European
companies – especially SMEs – to exploit the full benefits of the Digital
Single Market.

2.           A change for the better – the economic
case for e-procurement

The EU’s public procurement market is
large: the current directives cover contracts worth around €447 billion, while
the overall market for purchases of goods, services and works by the EU public
sector is estimated to be worth in excess of €2.4 trillion.[10] E-procurement has the
potential to bring significant efficiency gains in this large market:

·
e-procurement can help improve the transparency
of and access to procurement opportunities, especially for SMEs, thus
stimulating cross-border competition, innovation and growth in the Single
Market. It can also reduce error rates, for example, by avoiding the need to
repeatedly encode paper-based information in IT systems at different phases of
the procurement procedure;

·
e-procurement can also achieve significant cost
reductions, both by lowering the price that the public sector pays to purchase
goods, services and works; and by reducing transaction costs for the public
sector and for economic operators (including by reducing the duration of
procurement procedures). The resulting savings can either help to promote
fiscal consolidation or be redirected towards growth enhancing initiatives.

Economic modelling work carried out by the
European Commission services suggest that price reductions in public
procurement[11]
can have a significant macro-economic impact. The price reductions assumed in
this modelling work are well within the range that existing e-procurement
systems have achieved and could raise GDP by up to 0.1
to 0.2% after 5 years.[12] A conservative back-of-the-envelope calculation from another study
suggests that a full transition to e-procurement could generate €50 to €75
billion/ year.[13]

There are numerous examples of successful
e-procurement solutions already in operation across Europe:[14]

·
following the introduction of e-procurement,
Portuguese hospitals were able to achieve price reductions of 18% on their
procurement contracts. In aggregate, the switch-over to e-procurement in
Portugal is estimated to have generated savings of about €650 million in the
first year and could have reached €1.2 billion if all contracting authorities
had fully implemented e-procurement. The potential savings therefore amount to
between 6% and 12% of total procurement expenditure. Most of the savings were
due to lower prices resulting from higher competition (more bids per
procedure), although administrative savings were also achieved;

·
XchangeWales – the Welsh e-procurement programme
- delivered benefits of £58 million (December 2011), three years after it was
launched. The investment costs of setting up the programme were recouped in
only one year. To date, the programme has saved about 15 million sheets of
paper, equivalent to 101 tonnes of CO2. So far, 56 000 suppliers
registered in the system and £18 billion of contracts were advertised
electronically;

·
UGAP (Union des groupements d’achats publics)–
the French central purchasing body – estimates that the progressive switch to
e-procurement reduced the administrative burden for buyers by 10% (e.g. through
faster analysis of bids and easy access to documents) and by another 10% for
the legal services involved (as less legal control was required when
e-procurement is used). The cost of implementing the system was minimal
compared to the benefits that have already been realised, although effort was
required to train staff and change internal working methods;

·
a study of 400 local authorities in the
Netherlands shows that switching to e-procurement generates process cost
savings of over €8 500 per tender. This is based on using electronic means from
the publication of notices through to submission, but does not include
automatic evaluation (which was unavailable on the platforms at the time of the
survey, but which is now creating further significant savings). Two of the key factors
contributing to these cost savings are: time reduction – per procedure, contracting
authorities save on average up to 3 days and bidders up to 1 day; and reduced
printing and postage costs (estimated at €2 350 per tender).

·
a recent survey of Norwegian public procurement
managers found out that none of the managers surveyed would consider returning
to manual, paper-based tendering. The survey indicates that the use of
e-procurement: increased participation by foreign firms (22% of respondents)
and by SMEs (30% of respondents), resulted in a larger number of bids per
tender (74% of respondents), reduced purchase costs (70% of respondents) and
reduced the time spent on each tender by more than 10% (73% of participants).
While these results may not be fully representative due to the limited sample
size used, they illustrate the benefits that e-procurement can deliver.

Implementation of e-procurement solutions
inevitably incurs some up-front costs, but experience shows that these can be
recouped in a relatively short period of time. In
addition, existing systems show that they can be a powerful means to promote
SME participation, including across borders, as SMEs find it easier to identify
and respond to tender opportunities using electronic means than in a
traditional paper-based environment.

3.           Overcoming the barriers – the way
forward

The economic case for e-procurement is
compelling and the enabling technologies for e-procurement are now widely
available. Nevertheless, a number of barriers continue to hamper the transition
towards full e-procurement in the EU. Responses to the 2010 Green Paper on
e-procurement[15]
identified two main drivers of the slow up-take:

1.           The "inertia"
exhibited by certain stakeholders. The challenge is to persuade hesitant
purchasers and suppliers to change their ingrained habits; convince them that
the predicted benefits are attainable and that investments can be recouped in a
reasonable period.

2.           Market fragmentation
that can emerge from the existence of a wide variety of systems, sometimes
technically complex, deployed across the EU (and sometimes within a single
Member States) that can lead to increased costs for economic
operators/suppliers.

The challenge is therefore to persuade
stakeholders to embrace new electronic solutions and ensure that the systems
put in place facilitate wider access across the EU to these valuable markets. The
results of the 2010 evaluation of the Action Plan[16] for e-procurement show that
additional measures are needed to support e-procurement take-up, as the
technology to conduct e-procurement is now ready to be used. To overcome these
barriers, the European Commission is undertaking a number of actions, including
both legislative and non-legislative measures. This chapter describes these
actions.

3.1.        Creating an effective
legal framework

The strategy set-out in this Communication
builds on the e-procurement provisions contained in the legislative proposals
adopted by the European Commission in December 2011, which would replace the
existing legislative framework. It is premised on the assumption that these
proposals will be adopted without substantial change. This is however without
prejudice to the outcome of the legislative procedure, which will need to be
taken into account by organisations implementing e-procurement systems.

The proposal on the classical sector[17] foresees a gradual transition
towards full electronic means of communication. These will become mandatory for
some phases of the procurement process and for some actors by the transposition
deadline: e.g. e-notification to TED[18]
and electronic availability of procurement notices. Central Purchasing Bodies
should also move to full electronic means of communication, including
electronic submission of bids (e-submission) by that date. All other
contracting authorities will be required to perform all procurement procedures
using electronic means of communication no later than two years after the
transposition deadline, except in duly justified circumstances.

The proposal also includes streamlined
provisions regulating certain electronic procedures and tools, such as Dynamic Purchasing Systems (DPS), electronic auctions
(e-auctions) and electronic catalogues (e-catalogues). In addition, e-CERTIS
will become a mandatory clearing house two years after
the transposition deadline. It will list the
certificates and statements that may be requested for qualification of a bidder
in procurement and will set the equivalence criteria across Member States. This
will provide greater clarity and legal certainty, especially in terms of
cross-border submission, with regards to certificates and statements that may
be required by Member States.[19]

The provisions on e-procurement in the
proposal on the utilities sector[20]
are substantially similar to those in the classical sector. The proposal on
concessions[21]
also includes requirements on electronic means of communication and foresees a
transition period of five years instead of two. If the Commission’s proposals
are adopted by the end of 2012 (the deadline endorsed by the informal European
Council of 30 January 2012), the vast majority of procurement procedures
covered by the proposals would in principle be carried using electronic means
of communication by mid-2016.

Last but not least, the proposals support the sharing of information
and best practices and greater co-operation through the use of the Internal
Market Information System (IMI), a secure online
application that allows competent authorities in the EEA to communicate quickly
and easily with their counterparts abroad. In the future, synergies could be
explored between the IMI application and e-CERTIS.

The phased approach to e-procurement
implementation is designed to give all stakeholders time to meet the
operational challenges, whilst ensuring that the pace of change accelerates and
that all Member States follow the same overall timetable. The objective is to
avoid the lengthy co-existence of parallel electronic and paper-based
procedures that significantly increase costs for both contracting authorities
and economic operators. The Commission urges Member States to launch the
necessary preparatory work as soon as possible to ensure timely compliance with
these provisions. The Commission will monitor and publicly report about progress
in the Member States as set out in chapter 3.5.

The Commission’s proposals encourage
inter-operability between e-procurement systems and contain provisions designed
to ensure that suppliers encounter no technical barriers when bidding on
different systems. To this end, it empowers the Commission to adopt delegated
acts in a number of specific areas to render mandatory
the use of specific technical standards. These could draw on work carried out
in the relevant standardisation bodies and on recommendations
issued by the e-Tendering Expert Group (see
section 3.2). In addition, in the context of the Digital Agenda for Europe,
guidelines are being developed on how to use standards when procuring ICT
systems.[22]

Although they do not mandate the use of
electronic signatures (e-signatures), the legislative proposals aim to achieve
a better balance between providing flexibility to public authorities that wish
to use this tool, and ensuring greater cross-border inter-operability of
e-signature solutions. If public authorities require the use of an advanced
e-signature as defined in Directive 1999/93/EC on e-signatures, they must
accept e-signatures supported by a qualified electronic certificate referred to
in the Trusted List provided for in Commission Decision 2009/767/EC. The
proposal thus leverages the approach developed under the Services Directive.

The Commission is currently assessing the
framework for electronic identification, authentication and signatures to enhance
trust and security and to ensure the ease of use and the interoperability of such
systems across the EU. A legislative proposal is expected by the end of the 2nd
quarter of 2012.

Key actions:

(1)
European Parliament
and Council to agree new legal framework requiring full
transition to e-procurement. Deadline:
adoption by end-2012.

(2)
Where necessary, European
Commission to harmonise technical requirements via delegated acts. Deadline: after
adoption of new directives.

(3)
European Commission
to propose a new legal framework for electronic
identification, authentication and signatures. Deadline: by 2nd quarter 2012.

3.2.        Promoting
practical solutions based on best-practices

The recent legislative proposals are a
necessary but not sufficient condition for the successful implementation of
e-procurement in the EU. In addition, a number of non-legislative flanking
actions are needed to support Member States during their transition to full
e-procurement and to address certain practical challenges currently limiting
take-up.

IT technology is now mature to enable a new
generation of e-procurement systems. New paradigms, already used in the private
sector, are becoming available to public buyers, allowing them to simplify and
streamline the purchase process without compromising the public interests that
such procurement must fulfil, e.g. transparency, competition, inclusion of SMEs
and cross-border bidders, etc.

Recognising this potential, the
Commission’s legislative proposals are based on the principle of simplification,
and this priority should be retained when considering the practical
implementation of e-procurement solutions. Such solutions should seek to provide an optimal balance between performance,
cost-effectiveness and accessibility, while of course respecting the
requirements of EU law. These systems should be designed to ensure full SME
participation to the procurement market in accordance with the Small Business
Act and the "Think Small First" principle. A
particular objective should be to make the e-submission phase as accessible as
possible, removing barriers that currently often discourage newcomers from
undertaking onerous registration or authentication procedures required by some
platforms – in some cases requiring the use of tools and assets only available
in the country concerned.

In order to address these challenges, the
Commission has established an e-Tendering Expert Group (e-TEG) tasked with
defining a blueprint for pre-award e-procurement that provides a basis for the
development of “best of breed” solutions. The objective is to promote solutions
that achieve the optimal balance between usability and other attributes such as
security. An essential task for the e-TEG is to define an effective model for
e-submission, as this is currently the main bottleneck for the wider
implementation of e-procurement. On-going standards work, such as that carried
out by the CEN BII workshop, will be leveraged by the e-TEG.

Using this blueprint as its reference
model, the e-TEG will also present recommendations on actions to be taken by
the EU institutions and Member States to ensure the roll-out of e-procurement
platforms that guarantee cross-border access and facilitate use by all economic
operators in particular SMEs, whilst nonetheless preserving Member State
autonomy to design solutions that best fit national requirements and can be
integrated with existing platforms.

In parallel, the Commission has launched a
study to benchmark current e-procurement practices in Europe. This will lead to
the publication of a case-book (“the Golden Book”) of best implementation practices
based on the review of existing e-procurement platforms against criteria such
as accessibility, ease of use and cost-effectiveness. The outcome of this work
will be used to promote convergence towards and take-up of such good practices
by Member States and public authorities investing in e-procurement
infrastructure.

Key actions:

(4)
e-TEG (Expert Group) to issue recommendations to
promote “best of breed” e-procurement systems facilitating cross-border access and ease of use for all
companies. Deadline: by early 2013.

(5)
European Commission
to publish report on best e-procurement practice. European Commission to use these results
to promote best practice across the EU. Deadline: by mid-2013.

3.3.        Supporting the deployment
of e-procurement infrastructure

The Commission has promoted the
implementation of cross-border e-procurement solutions through PEPPOL
(Pan-European Public Procurement On-Line),[23]
a pilot project partly funded through the Competitiveness and Innovation
Programme (CIP). PEPPOL does not provide an e-procurement platform but rather
the interoperability bridges needed to connect the already existing platforms
in Member States. The project comes to end in mid-2012 and the Commission
intends to support the sustainability of a range of interoperable PEPPOL
solutions. Furthermore, a new CIP call is currently open, seeking proposals to
develop a comprehensive, coherent and reusable set of public services building
blocks by bringing together and completing work performed by five current CIP
pilot projects (including PEPPOL).[24]

As part of the multi
annual financial framework, the Commission has proposed the launch of the
'Connecting Europe Facility' (CEF)[25]
programme. Its goal would be to support investment in the deployment of
infrastructure required to enable the delivery of cross border public services
(i.e. essential digital service infrastructures in the public interest). The
proposed budget for these infrastructures is around 2 billion EUR and
e-procurement would be one of the key services under consideration. It is
currently estimated that projects funded under the CEF will come on-stream in
2014-2015; .

Moreover, the Commission will use
structural funds under the proposed Common Strategic Framework (CSF) to
complement investments made by the CEF and to support the use of e-procurement
across public administrations in Europe.

Key actions:

(6)
European Commission
to support the sustainability of PEPPOL components as of mid-2012.

(7)
European Commission
to fund and support the development of e-procurement
infrastructure across Europe
via Connecting Europe Facility (CEF). European Commission to launch
projects as of 2014-2015.

(8)
European Commission
to promote use of Structural Funds to foster
e-procurement take-up across
Europe, as set-out in the Common Strategic Framework for 2014-2020.

3.4.        Dissemination strategy

To overcome the inertia exhibited by
certain stakeholders (see chapter 3 above), the Commission will put in place a
wide-ranging dissemination strategy, aimed at informing contracting authorities
and suppliers about the benefits of e-procurement and about how they can be
fully exploited. This will draw on a range of tools including:

·
the Europe Enterprise Network, to provide
targeted advice to European SMEs about the opportunities that e-procurement
opens for them to bid across the EU;

·
in order to ensure that local and regional
authorities are made aware of the benefits that e-procurement can deliver for
them, as well as good practices in e-procurement, the Commission will exploit
the networking opportunities offered by the annual Open Days/European Weeks of
Regions and Cities as well as the networking programmes (Urbact/INTERREG) and
other good practice tools.

The Commission also intends to organise an
annual high-level conference on e-procurement, bringing together a wide-range
of stakeholders to debate the latest developments in e-procurement. The first
annual conference will take place by mid-2012.

Key actions:

(9)
European Commission
to implement a wide-ranging dissemination strategy to inform public authorities and
companies about the opportunities and benefits offered by e-procurement.

(10)
European Commission
to organise annual conference on e-procurement, starting in mid-2012.

3.5.        Monitoring
e-procurement take-up and benefits

One of the necessary conditions for EU and
national policy-makers to be able to accompany and steer the take-up of
e-procurement is the capacity to track developments and measure the impact of
change. There is a shared interest among EU, national and local-level policy
makers in having reliable and comparable information to optimise the
change-over from traditional to electronic processes. There is thus a need to
develop a set of indicators to provide a comprehensive picture of both the
take-up of e-procurement and the efficiency gains that it will deliver.

To address this important requirement, the
Commission has launched a study aimed at developing EU wide indicators for
e-procurement. The project will provide an update on progress and lay the
conceptual foundation for a future reporting regime about the use and economic
impact of e-procurement across the EU. This reporting regime would be based on
the ability of e-procurement platforms to generate homogeneous indicator data
when the migration to e-procurement is completed. This data can then be
collected and processed at various levels to obtain the required level of
information on all procurement across the EU in near real-time.

In order to promote steady progress towards
the objective of full e-procurement in the EU, the Commission intends to
closely monitor both the take-up of e-procurement and its economic impact and
will publish a report on e-procurement by mid-2013. This report will identify
both the progress that has been achieved and any outstanding issues which
remain, together with recommendations on the next steps to be taken. It will
also draw on the indicators developed by the above mentioned study.

Key actions:

(11)
European Commission
to lay the foundations for electronic systems to
monitor procurement expenditure
in real-time. Deadline: by mid-2013.

(12)
European Commission
to issue annual report on e-procurement. Deadline: first report in mid-2013.

4.           Leading by example

As a significant procurer, the European
Commission recognises its own responsibility to obtain the best value for money
possible and ensure that its own procurement processes are as efficient and
effective as possible. This includes leveraging the potential of e-procurement.

The Digital Agenda for Europe[26] and the 2010 e-Government
Action Plan[27]
both committed the European Commission to implement “an ambitious e-Commission
Action Plan for 2011- 2015, including full electronic procurement, a public
sector information strategy and a transparency policy.” The Commission expects
to adopt the e-Commission Action Plan by the end of the 2nd semester
of 2012.

The Commission is already carrying out
pilot projects in both the pre- and post-award phases, such as the e-Tendering[28] and e-Prior projects.[29] These projects will be
integrated into a comprehensive solution covering all phases of the procurement
chain. Thanks to the e-Prior project (implemented under
the ISA program[30]),
e-invoicing has been live at the Commission's Directorate General for
Informatics (DIGIT) since 2009, offering significant advantages over
traditional paper-based invoicing, such as: better data quality; faster
processing time; absence of data encoding or attachment scanning, leading to a
substantial reduction of human errors. Moreover, since the beginning of 2012,
e-Invoicing (and gradually other e-Procurement processes) is becoming mandatory
for other Directorate-Generals of the Commission and European Agencies using
DIGIT’s Framework Contracts.

Furthermore, the
next phase of development will concentrate on providing a system for electronic
submission – probably the most challenging aspect of the pre-award phase. A feasibility
study and an ensuing pilot implementation of this e-submission phase are planned
before the end of 2012. The system is intended to be fully interoperable with
the infrastructure developed under the PEPPOL project. Moreover, the software
has been and will continue to be made available to external users and
developers on an open source basis. Currently open e-Prior is being tested or considered
for implementation by contracting authorities in several countries such as
Greece, Norway and Portugal.

The European Commission intends to complete
the transition towards a full e-procurement system, including both pre-award
and post-award phases, by the end of June 2015 – delivering on its commitments
in the Digital Agenda for Europe and e-Government Action Plan. The Commission’s
High Level Committee on IT (HLCIT) decided in December 2011 to launch the
necessary preparatory work. The European Commission will also work in close
cooperation with other EU institutions, bodies and agencies to assist them with
the possible integration of e-procurement solutions into their existing
procurement procedures.

Key actions:

(13)
European Commission to implement full
e-procurement by mid-2015
(one year before the deadline for Member States)

(14)
European Commission to make its e-procurement
solutions available to
Member States that are building their infrastructure, to reduce investment
costs.

5.           International dimension of e-procurement

The current text of the WTO (World Trade
Organisation) GPA (Government Procurement Agreement) contains very limited
provisions concerning e-procurement and merely foresees that parties shall
consult regularly on developments in this area. The recently agreed GPA text
represents a step-change as it recognises the importance of using and
encouraging the use of electronic means for procurement, while contracts
awarded by electronic means are now explicitly within the scope of the
Agreement. General principles are established governing the use of electronic
means while specific rules apply inter alia to the electronic
publication of notices and the use of electronic auctions. Beyond these legal
provisions, informal consultations among jurisdictions on the use of
e-procurement systems will become essential to avoid new obstacles to
cross-border contracts. Common reliance on high-quality international standards
should pave the way to achieve the necessary degree of openness and
inter-operability.

In light of the increasingly important
international dimension of e-procurement, openness of e-procurement systems to
bidders from all jurisdictions, especially among WTO GPA members, must be
ensured. The European Commission will therefore seek to step-up its
participation in relevant international standardisation fora and to more
systematically include e-procurement in bilateral regulatory dialogues with its
main trading partners.

Key actions:

(15)
European Commission
to promote international regulatory dialogues about open e-procurement systems and to
actively monitor relevant international standardisation
work.

6.           Conclusion

The transition towards full e-procurement
is not primarily a technical nor technological challenge. It is above all an
economic and political challenge, which cannot be overcome without strong
commitment at the highest political level. The Commission therefore invites
Member States and the European Parliament to give a clear political signal of
their determination to face-up to this challenge, in particular by adopting the
revised Public Procurement legislative package before the end of this year so that
the transition to full e-procurement is achieved successfully in the EU by
mid-2016.

[1]               The use of electronic communications and transaction
processing by public sector organisations when buying supplies and services or
tendering public works

[2]               COM(2010)245

[3]               COM(2010) 743 of 15 December 2010

[4]               According to the Manchester Ministerial Declaration
of 24 November 2005 “all public administrations across Europe will have the
capability of carrying out 100% of their procurement electronically” and “at
least 50% of public procurement above the EU public procurement threshold will
be carried out electronically” by 2010: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/egovernment/docs/pdf/manchester_declaration.pdf.

[5]               See: http://www.pps.go.kr/english/
for further information

[6]               Proposals of 20 December 2011: COM(2011)895 final; COM(2011)896 final and
COM(2011)897 final

[7]               The Single Market Act identifies a series of measures
to boost the European economy and create jobs

[8]               The proposals foresee mandatory use of e-procurement at
the latest two years after the transposition deadline, which under the current
timetable for adoption should allow implementation by mid-2016

[9]               The procurement processes covers two main phases: the
pre-award phase and the post award phase. Pre-award comprises all the
sub-phases of procurement until the award of the contract (publication of
notices, access to tender documents, submission of bids, evaluation of the
proposals and the award of the contract). Post-award comprises all the
sub-phases of procurement after the award of the contract (ordering, invoicing
and payment)

[10]             See European Commission's report on Public Procurement
Indicators 2010: http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/publicprocurement/docs/indicators2010_en.pdf

[11]             Contracting authorities and entities that made the
transition to e-procurement commonly report savings between 5 to 20% mainly
driven by price reductions

[12]             See Lukas Vogel, Macroeconomic
effects of cost savings in public procurement, Economic Papers 389,
November 2009 (DG for Economic and Financial Affairs, European Commission): http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/publications/publication16259_en.pdf.

[13]             See E-procurement - Public procurement worth two
trillion euros needs smarter spending, Deutsche Bank Research (February
2011). See: http://www.dbresearch.de/PROD/DBR_INTERNET_DE-PROD/PROD0000000000269867.PDF.

[14]             These examples were obtained by the European Commission
through direct contact with various public authorities and stakeholders

[15]             Summary of the responses to the Green Paper on expanding
the use of e-procurement in the EU.: http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/consultations/docs/2010/e-procurement/synthesis_en.pdf.

[16]             See the Action Plan and related documents, including
its 2010 evaluation at: http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/publicprocurement/e-procurement/documents/index_en.htm.

[17]             Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and
of the Council on public procurement (COM(2011) 896 final)

[18]             TED (Tenders Electronic Daily) is the online version of
the 'Supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union', dedicated to
European public procurement.

[19]             More information about e-CERTIS is available on the
Europa website at: http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/publicprocurement/e-procurement/e-certis/index_en.htm.

[20]             Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and
of the Council on procurement by entities operating in the water, energy,
transport and postal services sector (COM(2011) 895 final)

[21]             Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and
of the Council on the award of concessions contracts (COM(2011) 897 final)

[22]             Digital Agenda Europe Action "Guidance on link
between ICT standardisation and public procurement".

[23]             http://www.peppol.eu/.

[24]             See http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/ict_psp/projects/index_en.htm.

[25]             The CEF was proposed in 2011 as the common financing
instrument for trans-European networks. See Communication from the Commission
on “A growth package for integrated European infrastructures”, COM(2011)676.
See also Proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the
Council establishing the Connecting Europe Facility COM(2011)665

[26]             COM(2010)245 of 19 May 2010.

[27]             COM(2010)743 of 15 December 2010.

[28]             https://etendering.ted.europa.eu/

[29]             e-PRIOR is a solution developed within the European
Commission. It was made available to external users as an open source solution
(“Open e-PRIOR”). See https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/software/openeprior/description.

[30]             http://ec.europa.eu/isa/