WRITTEN QUESTION E-2846/02 by Erik Meijer (GUE/NGL) to the Commission. Discrimination between three bidders in the award of the contract for services on the high-speed rail line in the Netherlands as a means of extorting a higher payment.
Date: 2002-10-10
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: Netherlands, award of contract, carriage of passengers, competition, equal treatment, high-speed transport, rail transport, services contract, tendering

C 222 E/20

Official Journal of the European Union

EN

18.9.2003

The accreditation procedure which has been initiated would seem to be a lengthy and costly bureaucratic
process and to involve a reorganisation of the specific procedures of inspection and certification bodies. To
date, no Italian inspection and certification body has obtained US accreditation. Will the Commission state
whether any action has been taken at European level with a view to concluding an agreement on
equivalence and mutual recognition of standards between the USA and Europe?

What is the Commission’s ‘European Organic Action Plan’ intended to achieve and what arrangements
have been made to ensure that people can rapidly obtain comprehensive information on the activities
carried out under the plan?

Answer given by Mr Fischler on behalf of the Commission

(15 November 2002)

On 21 October 2002, 18 months after its introduction, the National Organic Program (NOP), which is the
legal framework for organic farming in the United States, comes into force. The American authorities
indeed require that products from organic farming imported in the United States are certified by inspection
bodies accredited by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). A number of Community based
inspection bodies, including one that is recognized in Italy, have been accredited by the USDA so far and
several others are being evaluated.

On Community level, the Commission has been holding intensive technical discussions with the USDA.
These discussions form the basis for a possible equivalency agreement, in which case the overall regulatory
system of the Community on organic farming would be recognized as equivalent by the United States.

The USDA has declared it will apply a flexible approach for the transition after 21 October 2002, when
including crops planted
the NOP will come into force. Products already ‘in the stream of commerce’,
before 21 October 2002, will be treated as according to the procedures used previously.

As requested by the Council, the Commission is analysing the possibilities of a European action plan to
promote organic food and farming. The Commission is currently working on a Communication to the
Council and the Parliament that will be presented by December 2002.

(2003/C 222 E/023)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2846/02

by Erik Meijer (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(10 October 2002)

Subject: Discrimination between three bidders in the award of the contract for services on the high-speed

rail line in the Netherlands as a means of extorting a higher payment

1.
Is the Commission aware of the way in which the contract was awarded in the Netherlands for a
15-year concession to provide services on the Amsterdam (cid:1) Rotterdam (cid:1) Breda (cid:1) Antwerp high-speed
rail line, which will come into operation in 2006 as an extension of the existing high-speed line between
Paris North and Brussels South, in which three consortia were involved, namely 1. Nederlands Railways
(NS) and the airline KLM; 2. Deutsche Bahn and the British transport operator Arriva; 3. the Netherlands
regional transport operator Connexxion and the French conglomerate CGEA/Vivendi/Connex?

Can the Commission confirm that no equivalent assessment was made of the three bids for the
2.
contract because, in breach of the invitation to tender, negotiations were held only with the first bidder
and the two others were merely used to put further pressure on NS, which had had earlier rejected a
private offer, to agree to pay the State an amount of EUR 148 a year and, as a result, charge future
passengers very high fares?

3.
Does the Commission regard this state of affairs as complying with its proposal for a regulation on
action by Member States concerning public service requirements and the award of public service contracts
in passenger transport by rail, road and inland waterway [2000/0212 (COD)] of 26 July 2000 and with
the position adopted by the European Parliament at first reading on 4 November 2001 [2000/0212
(COD)-PE-1], in view of the fact that, although these two texts differ with regard to the public tender

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requirement for all public transport, they agree that bidders should be treated equally when comparing
their suitability in a tender selection procedure?

4.
Does the state of affairs outlined above with regard to the tender give the Commission grounds for
asking the Netherlands government to reopen the procedure and to decide clearly in advance whether it is
going to make a fair comparison of all the bids, or award the contract in an underhand way which raises
no expectations among the other bidders?

Source: NRC-Handelsblad, 15 September 2002.

Answer given by Mr Bolkestein on behalf of the Commission

(25 November 2002)

In 1999 and 2000, the Commission has, at the beginning of the process, received information
1.
relating to the procedures considered by the Dutch authorities in order to award a 15-year concession
contract concerning domestic and international transport services over the ‘HSL-Zuid’, the high-speed line
between Belgium and the Netherlands. Once the choice being made in favour of an international tendering
procedure, the Commission has not followed the award process itself and has neither received a complaint
in this respect which would have prompted it to investigate the process.

2.
Therefore, the Commission cannot confirm that no equivalent assessment of the three bids for this
contract has been made. The Commission had notice of the launch of the procedure, but did not follow
the further conduct of it.

4.
At the present moment, no complaint has been received by the Commission with regard to the
award of the services concession in question and the Commission does not possess information according
to which the Dutch authorities would have violated Community public procurement law and which would
justify the launch of an infringement procedure.

According to the information the Commission possesses, the Dutch authorities have indeed respected the
Community public procurement law applicable to services concessions, i.e. the principles of the EC treaty,
and especially those of transparency and non-discrimination. The Dutch authorities have published a pre-
information notice in the Official Journal of the European Communities on 10 June 1999. This notice
referred to the Internet site where the Registration Document for potential operators could be found. The
procedure to be followed and the method of evaluation of tenders were set out in these documents. Even if
the Dutch authorities first considered to give a preferential treatment to NS regarding the domestic
transport services, they eventually resorted to a public tender procedure for domestic and international
transport services and sent to this effect a qualification document to all parties which had registered their
interest in an earlier phase.

The Commission thanks the Honourable Member of the Parliament for drawing its attention to the issue of
equivalent assessment of the bids. The Commission will request information from the Dutch authorities in
order to verify how the method of evaluation and negotiation indicated in the invitation to tender has
been applied. The Commission would be grateful
if the Honourable Member of the Parliament could
submit copies of documents or any other piece of evidence, which he possibly possesses and which would
allow its services to investigate this issue.

The Commission’s proposal for a Regulation on public service requirements (1) in public transport
3.
has not yet been adopted. The proposal permits contract durations of up to 15 years for rail services.
It requires tendering procedures to be fair, open and non-discriminatory. It permits post-tender negotiation
for contracts with an estimated annual value of more than EUR 3 000 000, providing that the requirements
of fairness, openness and non-discrimination continue to be respected. In the light of the above (see the
procedure followed by the Dutch authorities and outlined in the documents referred to in (Ad 4)), the
Commission does not possess information according to which the contract award procedure would not
have been compliant with the provisions of the proposed Regulation.

(1) OJ C 365 E, 19.12.2000.