WRITTEN QUESTION E-4099/97 by Winifred Ewing (ARE) to the Commission (16 January 1998)

Subject: Awarding contracts

The Belgian company GIM, Geographic Information Management, as well as its mother company, GIM, Luxembourg, have been regularly awarded contracts by the European Commission (amongst them GISCO/Luxembourg and Eurostat) and by the European Environment Agency, amongst others for the CORINE programme and for the PHARE Programme.

Most of those projects were awarded without any competition.

1. Can the Commission provide a list of contacts that were awarded to GIM Belgium and GIM Luxembourg during the last 5 years? In accordance with which procedure were they awarded? For what amounts and for which periods were the contracts awarded?

2. Is the Commission aware of the fact that 99% of the shares of GIM Belgium are owned by GIM Luxembourg and that 75% of the shares of GIM Luxembourg are owned by a company named KIVAL Consultants, located in the Bahamas?

3. The Bahamas is one of the places that are known to have laws which make it impossible to verify the shareholdership of companies. The goal of this legislation is to attract companies of which the shareholders wish to remain anonymous in order to maintain secrecy. Does the Commission agree that it is not advisable to conclude contracts with companies of which the majority shareholders are located in such places?

4. Does the Commission agree that the companies to which it awards contracts should reveal the identity of their shareholders in order to prevent contracts from being awarded to companies that are linked to secret organizations?

Answer given by Mr Liikanen on behalf of the Commission (18 March 1998)

1. It is true that the Commission has awarded several contracts to Geographic Information Management (GIM) in recent years.

Four contracts were awarded in the last five years in the field of foreign aid, notably the PHARE programme. As the amounts involved were less than the ECU 50 000 threshold laid down by Council Regulation (EEC) No 3906/89 on economic aid to the Republic of Hungary and the Polish People's Republic ((OJ L 375, 23.12.1989. )), three of these contracts were awarded by private treaty. They were concerned with the production of maps and ranged in length from one year to three years.

Four contracts were awarded over the past five years in areas other than foreign aid. Three of them were published in the Official Journal and the fourth, which was for an amount below the threshold for publication, was awarded on the basis of a restricted procedure in accordance with the provisions of the Financial Regulation ((OJ L 356, 31.12.1977. )). All these contracts were therefore awarded in accordance with the procedures for public contracts laid down in the Financial Regulation and the public procurement directives.

In the case of all these contracts the services provided by the company were satisfactory. There were no problems with the planning or performance of the tasks the firm was asked to carry out.

2. and 3. The public procurement directives, and in particular Articles 29 and 30 of Directive 92/50/EEC relating to the coordination of procedures for the award of public service contracts ((OJ L 209, 24. 7.1992. )), allow tenderers to be excluded if they have not fulfilled their obligations as regards the payment of tax and social security contributions. They do not, however, enable a company to be excluded because its capital is held by a particular individual or another company. This criterion would be considered discriminatory under the terms of the directives.

To make tax avoidance more difficult, the Commission may require tenderers to supply the appropriate proof. In the case of PHARE, the Commission insists that consultants on the short lists must have their registered office either in a Member State or in a recipient country. Specific investigations are carried out if a tenderer or contractor is suspected of having connections with organisations considered to be illegal and the findings are passed on to the Commission.

Details of the four contracts which exceeded ECU 50 000 have been sent direct to the Honourable Member and to Parliament's Secretariat.