WRITTEN QUESTION E-0887/01 by Nuala Ahern (Verts/ALE) to the Commission. Annual quantities of depleted uranium imported into and exported from EU Member States.
Date: 2001-03-27
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: access to EU information, export (EU), import (EU), uranium

C 261 E/212

Official Journal of the European Communities

EN

18.9.2001

What is the legal situation with regard to contracts the value of which is less than € 200 000?

What is the legal situation with regard to contracts the value of which is more than € 200 000?

Answer given by Mr Bolkestein on behalf of the Commission

(26 April 2001)

The municipality mentioned in the given example is a contracting authority in terms of European public
procurement law. Therefore, Council Directive 92/50/EEC of 18 June 1992 relating to the coordination of
procedures for the award of public service contracts (1) and Council Directive 93/37/EEC of 14 June 1993
concerning the coordination of procedures for the award of public works contracts (2) as amended by
Parliament and Council Directive 97/52/EC of 13 October 1997 (3) applies to certain public works and
public service contracts of the municipality.

The municipality has to put the building management services out for tender if the following two
conditions are met: the services are building-cleaning services, property management services or integrated
engineering services in terms of categories 12 and 14 of Annex I A of Directive 92/50/EEC and the overall
value of the services to be executed is at least € 200 000. In contrast, the municipality has to put public
works out for tender only in case the overall value of the works is at least € 5 million. If the building
management services cover both public services and public works, the application of the Directive has to
be decided on grounds of what the main performance of the contract is (works or services).

The contract has to be put out for tender via publication of a tender notice. In general, the municipality
must award the contract under the open or restricted procedure. Under particular circumstances, the
municipality may award a public service contract by negotiated procedure with prior publication. This is
the case when the nature of the services to be procured, in particular in the case of intellectual services, is
such that contract specifications cannot be established with sufficient precision to permit the award of the
contract by selecting the best tender according to the rules governing open or restricted procedures. The
burden of proving the existence of exceptional circumstances justifying the negotiated procedure lies on
the municipality seeking to rely on the circumstances.

From the point of view of European law, the municipality is not hindered from awarding the contract to a
general contractor and allowing him to subcontract with third parties. In any case the contract of the
municipality must have been put out for tender via publication of a tender notice. Furthermore, it must
have been awarded according to the rules of the respective Directive. The rules of the Directives apply to
the subcontracting to third parties only in case the general contractor himself is a contracting authority in
terms of the Directives.

In case the overall value of the contracts is below the thresholds, Directives 92/50/EEC and 93/37/EEC do
not apply. Nonetheless the municipality has to abide by Community law while awarding the contracts. In
particular, the municipality has to behave in accordance with the principle of non-discrimination as laid
down in the EC Treaty.

(1) OJ L 209, 24.7.1992.
(2) OJ L 199, 9.8.1993.
(3) OJ L 328, 28.11.1997.

(2001/C 261 E/242)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0887/01

by Nuala Ahern (Verts/ALE) to the Commission

(27 March 2001)

Subject: Annual quantities of depleted uranium imported into and exported from EU Member States

Will the Commission publish a table of the annual quantities of depleted uranium respectively imported
into and exported from EU Member States for each year since 1991?

18.9.2001

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 261 E/213

Answer given by Mr Solbes Mira on behalf of the Commission

(23 May 2001)

Since 1988, the Commission (the Statistical Office of the European Communities (cid:129) (Eurostat)) has
collected and published statistics on extra- and intra-Community trade. The information sources for these
statistics are customs declarations for the extra-Community data and Intrastat declarations for intra-
Community data. Data on trade in depleted uranium is collected on the basis of the products defined in
the following subheadings of the combined nomenclature:

Subheading 2844.30-11:

(cid:129) Cermets containing uranium depleted in U 235 or compounds of this product.

Subheading 2844.30-19:

(cid:129) Uranium depleted into U 235; alloys, dispersions, ceramic products and mixtures containing uranium

depleted in U 235 or compounds of this product (excluding cermets).

Subheading 2844.30-91:

(cid:129) Compounds of uranium depleted in U 235 or of thorium, whether or not mixed together (Euratom)

other than thorium salts.

Individual figures for uranium depleted in U 235 are not available.

Note: For certain Member States,
2844.30-91 is confidential and therefore not published.

trade in products coming under subheadings 2844.30-19 and

By way of example, figures on the above-mentioned products have been supplied in an annex that has
been sent to the Honourable Member directly as well as to the Parliament(cid:146)s Secretariat.

(2001/C 261 E/243)

WRITTEN QUESTION P-0897/01

by Ilda Figueiredo (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(19 March 2001)

Subject: CAP net transfers

On 31 January 2001, the Commission presented its second report on economic and social cohesion. In
table A.26 of the annex, concerning CAP net transfers, the Commission reaches the conclusion that
Portugal, one of the EU(cid:146)s poorest countries, is a net CAP contributor, despite the fact that the amount
contributed fell between 1993 and 1998.
In its first report on economic and social cohesion, the
Commission had reached the same conclusion.

Can the Commission provide me with:

(cid:129) the preliminary data for all the Member States, and the method employed for the calculations, which
were used to arrive at the conclusions of table A.26, given that these details are not explained on
pages 12 and 13 of COM(2000) 24 nor the annexes thereto;

(cid:129) the figures (net contributors and beneficiaries)

for all

the Member States from 1994 to 2001

(estimated), at standard prices;

(cid:129) if possible, the figures for the same period offset by the intra Community trade flows in and out of

each Member State?