The European Commission has launched on 18 October an open consultation about e-procurement in order to gather opinions from stake-holders and Member States to speed up and facilitate the procurement process. The Green Paper identifies some of the obstacles for e-procurement and sets out options for overcoming these challenges including, for example, regulatory incentives, standardisation and inter-operability solutions. Interested parties may submit their opinions until 16 January 2011.

E-procurement refers to the use of electronic communication and transaction processing by government institutions and other public sector organisations when buying supplies and services or tendering public works. The Green Paper on expanding the use of e-Procurement in the EU has identified some obstacles to faster take-up of e-procurement as well as the risks that divergent national approaches present for cross-border participation in on-line procurement.

E-procurement: Fostering Internal Market by electronic procedures in public procurement

The phasing in of e-procurement is part of the ambitious e-Government agenda which can fundamentally transform the delivery and performance of public administration. In 2009 over 150.000 contracts were advertised EU-wide with an estimated value of around 3% of EU GDP. In order to assess the state of the art regarding the use of electronic means in public procurement in Europe, the Commission launched an on-line survey in 2008. As a result, the Commission's evaluation of the 2004 Action Plan for electronic procurement has revealed that the technology to conduct e-procurement is now ready to be used. The replacement of paper-based public procurement procedures by automated processes holds out the promise of significantly faster and more streamlined procurement administration. Ultimately this should lead to better value for money for the taxpayer, which in the current climate would be very welcome, maximising the potential of constrained resources.

The Consultation on the Green Paper on expanding the use of e-Procurement in the EU will focus in three main aspects such as how to:

• fully exploit e-procurement's potential to simplify and improve public purchasing
• accelerate the switch-over by providing the right mix of legislative incentives and tools
• allow operators from other Member States to participate in on-line procurement procedures

E-procurement consultation targeted stake-holders

The Green Paper will be of interest to national ministries, large procurement agencies and contracting authorities, providers of technology solutions, procurement specialists in the private and public sector and representatives of business trade associations. It represents a first step towards a more comprehensive programme to harness the potential of ICT for better public procurement in Europe. The responses received from interested parties will help in drawing up a programme of EU level actions to enhance the use of e-procurement, which is to be finalised during 2011.

The e-CERTIS database

At the same time, the Commission is offering access to its e-CERTIS database which provides an on-line storehouse of the documents which are most frequently requested in the 27 Member States (for example, evidence of compliance with fiscal obligations or social security obligations or evidence of economic and financial standing). Inter alia, it allows users to identify such documents and match them with their local equivalent. Using of e-CERTIS will help business operators to reduce costs and uncertainty due to the lack of knowledge about the various certificates requested by the various national contracting authorities.