The European Parliament adopted today by large majority a resolution that aims to improve the EU rules on public procurement. In particular, the new rules shall make it more attractive for small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) to take part in European-wide tenders. Additionally, the procurement authorities will be asked to give more weight in their decisions to the quality of a required product or service instead of focusing only on the price.

Jürgen CREUTZMANN (FDP, Germany), who followed the report for the ALDE Group, welcomes these proposals: "Mandatory criteria for the acceptance of a tender have been rejected today, and that is good. It makes sense that procurement authorities shall include more the life-cycle costs of goods and services. The cheapest offer doesn't always result to be the most economic one."

Liberals and Democrats have supported proposals to improve the access of SME, e.g. by the consistent admission of self-declarations, the split of a contract into lots and the introduction of an electronic 'procurement passport'. Furthermore we succeeded in avoiding demands to block Europe's procurement market to third country bidders which would lead to a spiral of protectionist measures and go against the objective of free trade."

The EP resolution is the reply to a Green Paper by the European Commission, issued in early 2011. Concrete proposals for the revision of public procurement directives are announced for December 2011.