WRITTEN QUESTION E-0629/97 by Rinaldo Bontempi (PSE) to the Commission (4 March 1997)

Subject: Calls for tenders issued by the Community institutions

On 1 January 1997, calls for tenders issued by the Community Institutions - including invitations to take part in Community programmes - ceased to be published in the C series of the Official Journal of the European Communities and now only appear in the supplement, which is published in paper form and on CD-ROM.

This decision by the Office for Official Publications of the European Communities presents European citizens with a set of not insignificant disadvantages:

1. Firstly, it obliges subscribers to the Official Journal of the European Communities (L and C series) to take out an additional subscription to the S series (supplement) at an additional cost of ECU 800, in order to obtain information on the Community Institutions' calls for tenders. Furthermore, the limited availability of CD-ROM drives, particularly in public services, means that the CD-ROM version of the Official Journal is not yet distributed sufficiently widely.

2. The S series of the Official Journal comprises approximately 250 pages but only a few of these carry the Community Institutions' calls for tenders; the fact that anyone interested solely in the Community's tenders has to buy the entire S series of the Official Journal results in a considerable and unnecessary outlay to cover the cost of printing, paper and postage.

3. The cost of the additional subscription serves only to increase the handicap suffered by those already at a disadvantage regarding access to Community information and widens the gap between the European regions.

What are the Commission's reasons for this decision? Is it possible to return to the previous situation? If not, can changes be made in order to guarantee that the Community Institutions' much-vaunted policy of transparency and access to information for European citizens can be applied?

Answer given by Mr Oreja on behalf of the Commission (14 April 1997)

It should be stressed that only notices regarding the award of contracts by the Commission which fall under the basic regulations on public contracts, and which were formerly published in both S and C series of the Official Journal, now appear only in the S series of the Official Journal.

On the other hand, calls for expressions of interest and other proposals resulting from Commission programmes which do not fall into the category of the aforementioned public contracts will continue to be published in the C series of the Official Journal.

Subscribers to the Official Journal interested in the calls for tender by the Community institutions were already obliged to consult the S series of the Official Journal, because the other institutions only published calls for tender in that publication. Indeed, the Commission is just aligning itself with the common practice of the other European institutions and does so to foster sound management and strict budget control.

To make information more readily accessible the Commission has made the S series supplement to the Official Journal available on paper, on CD-ROM (the subscription for this is lower than for paper) and on the TED database. Calls for tenders meeting a specific profile, even a single call for tender, can be obtained from TED-Alert network agents.

Finally, the European documentation centres and Euro Info Centres, among others, have a free subscription to the CD-ROM and function as information relays. The Euro Info Centres also benefit from preferential access to the TED-Alert service on the best terms.