Members of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) called for better access to public procurement and more flexible state aid rules in the November plenary session. One of the opinions adopted highlights that some of member states are reluctant to cooperate and open up the public procurement market to competition, despite the EU efforts to promote e-procurement.

The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) adopted in November two opinions that show its commitment to ensure that EU companies enjoy equal access to public funding both in procurement and state aid cases. EESC members called in particular for better access to public procurement and more flexible state aid rules.

The EESC supports the European Commission's goal to complete the gradual transition towards a full e-procurement system in 4 years. However, it disagrees with the maintenance of thresholds for European-type procedures. The EESC points out in its opinion on e-procurement that maintaining thresholds would hamper the internal market and put SMEs in a disadvantaged position. Administrations which have already switched to e-procurement made savings of 5-20%. According to EESC members, savings would amount to more than €100 billion, if e-procurement were to be applied to all EU procurement.

With regard to the state aid rules, the EESC believes that the European Commission proposal for an EU state aid modernisation must be re-orientated in the opinion adopted on 14 November. It warns against the risk of giving member states greater responsibility in managing state aids. It would lead to confusion and a subjective application of the rules. The EESC also underlined that the Commission proposal should pay special attention to SMEs, which are severely affected by competitive pressures from third country firms that benefit from state aid. Moreover, EESC members stressed that the ceiling for de minimis aid (which is applied to each firm on the basis of a rolling period of three consecutive years) should be permanently increased from €200,000 to €500,000.