WRITTEN QUESTION E-3735/00 by Christopher Huhne (ELDR) to the Commission. Millennium bug.
Date: 2000-11-30
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: computer system, economic conditions, expenditure, impact of information technology

6.6.2001

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 163 E/203

Can the Commission provide information as to the full range of community actions, programmes and/or
budgetary items under which it might be possible to find funding for the teaching of Armenian in schools?

In certain well-known French schools, Armenian is taught in premises which should be enlarged, due to
growing demand. Can the Commission tell me whether the requisite school extensions could be paid for
by the EU, and if so, how and within what framework? Could subsidies for such work come under the
same heading as the teaching of minority languages, and if not, what programmes or budgetary items
might be appropriate as possible sources of funding for school extensions?

Answer given by Mrs Reding on behalf of the Commission

(5 January 2001)

Article 149 of the EC Treaty (ex Article 126) stipulates that the Member States are responsible for the
content of teaching and the organisation of their education systems; the Community contributes to the
development of quality education by encouraging cooperation between Member States and supplementing
their action.

The Comenius action within the Socrates programme is the main Community instrument for school
education.
Its objective is to enhance the quality and reinforce the European dimension of school
education, in particular by encouraging transnational cooperation between schools and helping to improve
initial and further training for staff directly involved in school education, as well as to promote language
learning and understanding of different cultures. It offers the possibility of funding for projects involving
native-language teaching for pupils of non-European origin and projects involving intercultural education.

Two other Community actions also apply to language learning in schools. However, the Lingua action
within the Socrates programme is restricted to the official languages of the European Union together with
Irish and Luxembourgish, while the preparatory action for regional and minority languages and cultures
gives priority to the non-official native languages of the Union.

Investment in the restructuring of school buildings is not regarded as eligible expenditure under these
actions. However, it is possible that such projects could be eligible for support from the Structural Funds,
provided the schools in question are in the areas to which the Funds(cid:146) objectives apply and the aims of the
project correspond to the Community priorities in the relevant field.

(2001/C 163 E/237)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3735/00

by Christopher Huhne (ELDR) to the Commission

(30 November 2000)

Subject: Millennium bug

Will the Commission please cite estimates made of the spending on preparations by Member State for the
millennium bug, and also cite estimates of the actual disruption to economic activity caused by the
millennium bug at the beginning of 2000?

Answer given by Mr Liikanen on behalf of the Commission

(26 January 2001)

At the present time, the Commission does not have the resources to undertake the lengthy research that a
detailed answer to the Honourable Member(cid:146)s question would require. However, in January 2000, Member
States did provide very broad estimates of the level of spending on the millennium bug. In general, public

C 163 E/204

Official Journal of the European Communities

EN

6.6.2001

information campaigns undertaken by governments cost between € 0,5-16 million, with the majority
spending between € 1-3 million. The cost of remediation work by the public sector was estimated at
between € 20 million and € 1 billion. Spending by Member States as a whole, including the private sector,
was estimated at between € 1-20 billion.

It
is impossible to make accurate assessments because it would be necessary to separate normal
information technology (IT) budget expenditure, which would have been incurred in any case, from
specific expenditure on the millennium bug. In some cases, the public sector managed to carry out all the
Millenium bug remediation work within existing IT budgets,
in others as much as half came from
additional funding. In many cases, organisations simply brought forward already planned IT investments.
The actual cost to the private sector is even more difficult to estimate, given that many companies did not
choose to disclose this information publicly.

In terms of the cost of actual disruption to economic activity, this is also information which companies
and administrations found very sensitive and thus were not inclined to disclose. As far as the Commission
knows, no Member State has provided estimates of these costs.

(2001/C 163 E/238)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3736/00

by Christopher Huhne (ELDR) to the Commission

(30 November 2000)

Subject: Tendering for public services

Will the Commission state whether there are any requirements, existing or proposed, that would require
public authorities to put tube (underground or metro) services out to tender?

Answer given by Mr Bolkestein on behalf of the Commission

(18 January 2001)

Where a public authority operates an Underground or Metro public transport network and proposes to
enter into contracts in pursuit of that activity, the authority is obliged to follow the rules of Council
Directive 93/38/EEC of 14 June 1993 co-ordinating the procurement procedures of entities operating in
the water, energy, transport and telecommunications sectors (1) ((cid:145)the Utilities Directive(cid:146)). In most cases this
means a tender with a call for competition must be made.

However, if the Honourable Member is referring to contracts for the operation of an Underground service
to be let by a public authority, the situation is somewhat different. In this case the contract award is
governed by the Utilities Directive if the authority is also an operator of a transport network. If the
authority does not also operate a transport network, the award of the contract will be governed by Council
Directive 92/50/EEC of 18 June 1992, on the co-ordination of procedures for the award of public service
contracts (2) ((cid:145)the Services Directive(cid:146)). In both cases the service is a (cid:145)non-priority(cid:146) service (i.e. mentioned in
part B of Annex I and Annex XVI of the Services and Utilities Directives respectively). Pursuant to these
directives, contracts for this type of service are not subject to advertising or most of the other strict
procedural requirements designed to ensure competitive tenders. In relation to this type of service the
Utilities and Services Directives require only that technical specifications should not be discriminatory and
that a contract award notice should be published showing the results of the award procedure.

The Commission recently adopted a proposal for a regulation on (cid:145)action by Member States concerning
public service requirements and the award of public service contracts in passenger transport by rail, road
and inland waterway(cid:146) (3).

This proposal deals with public authorities(cid:146) decisions to pay financial compensation for the operation of
public transport services, or to give operators exclusive rights.