WRITTEN QUESTION E-0563/00 by Christopher Huhne (ELDR) to the Commission. Public procurement.
Date: 2000-02-29
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: EU Member State, economic indicator, import, intra-EU trade, public contract, statistical method, type of business

C 330 E/186

Official Journal of the European Communities

EN

21.11.2000

(2000/C 330 E/213)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0563/00

by Christopher Huhne (ELDR) to the Commission

(29 February 2000)

Subject: Public procurement

What was the total amount of contracts won by the businesses of each Member State from EU Member
State public authorities outside their country of origin in each of the last five years? Please give a
breakdown of the total amount for each country by each other Member State.

Answer given by Mr Bolkestein on behalf of the Commission

(12 April 2000)

The Commission does not have at its disposal the statistics on the amount of contracts won by businesses
of each Member State from public authorities outside their Member State of origin at the level of detail to
provide the breakdown requested.

The Commission has been working towards a better understanding of the Community public procurement
markets and has been developing a set of indicators to measure market trends and the impact of public
procurement policy over time in fulfilment of its commitment in the communication on public procure-
ment (1).

The Commission is currently preparing a preliminary set of nine indicators which provide annual estimates
of total public procurement, the amount covered by the public procurement directives and the amount
actually advertised in the Official journal as well as the number of entities publishing notices, the number
of notices published and the amount of cross procurement within the Community. Additional indicators
will measure the quality of published notices and compare prices paid by the public sector for the same or
similar goods and services across the Community.

The volume of intra Community cross border procurement,
the amount of procurement by public
authorities of goods and services originating in another Member State, has proved difficult to measure
for several reasons.

Firstly the free movement of goods within the Community makes it difficult to ascertain where particular
goods procured by those authorities actually originated. The same is true for the freedom to provide
services. Increasingly the right of establishment makes it an even more complicated matter to interpret
those statistics on procurement provided by Member States. Another complicating issue is the formation of
consortia of companies from several Member States, particularly for larger tenders and construction
projects. Deciding where such consortia are based is often not meaningful and even to determine it
proportionally would be difficult.

The public authorities themselves often do not know, or record, where specific goods or services
originated.

For all these reasons the indicator of cross border procurement which is being developed has been based
on a survey of the suppliers to public authorities, rather than the authorities themselves. This figures show
the extent of cross border procurement within the Community. For each Member State the value of direct
and indirect intra-Community imports are given as a percentage of total procurement in 1998.

21.11.2000

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 330 E/187

Belgium & Luxembourg

Denmark

Germany

Greece

Spain

France

Ireland

Italy

Netherlands

Austria

Portugal

Finland

Sweden

United Kingdom

EU-15 weighted Mean

Import penetration

Direct

Indirect

5,8

3,3

1,2

2,4

1,6

1,7

4,4

1,4

5,5

3,4

2,9

3,7

6,2

0,6

1,8

11,6

23,0

3,8

23,7

5,7

9,8

27,9

6,5

10,7

10,2

18,5

24,6

8,4

11,0

8,5

(in %)

Total

17,3

26,3

5,0

26,1

7,3

11,5

32,3

7,9

16,2

13,6

21,4

28,3

14,6

11,6

10,3

The indicator does not provide figures with a sufficient degree of reliability to measure bilateral cross
border procurement between specific Member States. The estimate at the Community level is more reliable
but figures for individual Member States should also be treated with some caution, due to the sample size
(2000 companies surveyed). The figures represent all procurement, above and below the directives(cid:146)
thresholds, within the selected sectors.

A larger scale survey is planned in order to improve the accuracy of this indicator and to monitor
progress. The Commission is pursuing the possibility of incorporating this survey within the framework of
the structural business statistics programme carried out by Eurostat together with the Member States(cid:146)
statistical institutes.

(1) COM(98) 143 final.

(2000/C 330 E/214)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0568/00

by Christopher Huhne (ELDR) to the Council

(2 March 2000)

Subject: Staff dismissals and wage costs

How many members of the Council(cid:146)s staff have been dismissed in each of the last five years, and what
proportion does this represent of the total staff establishment in each year? What was the total wage bill
for the institution, and what was the average amount paid to each employee in each year?

Reply

(2 May 2000)

The Council would inform the Honourable Member that over the last five-year period, out of a total
average staff complement of 2 400 officials, one person in the General Secretariat was removed from his
post under Article 86(2)(f) of the Staff Regulations and one person was not established at the end of his
probationary period pursuant to the second subparagraph of Article 34(2) of the Staff Regulations.