Public procurement not priority, says single market expert

Date: 30/04/03

By Peter Chapman

PAULO Cecchini, the architect of the EU's single market, says the Union should lower its ambitions in the multi-billion euro public procurement market.

Cecchini, the man whose report in 1988 paved the way for the single market project, said the EU risks wasting time and effort opening up more public contracts to competition.

Instead, said Cecchini, only big contracts with a major international impact should be of concern at EU level.

"The economic concept in a broad sense should, in my view, assume much more importance than it does under present legislation," he added.

However, in an article in European Business Forum, the European Commission's former deputy director-general for the single market writes that further integration of financial markets is an "urgent priority".

"In spite of progress made in the wholesale market, serious handicaps to cross-border operations remain at the retail level, even though the advent of the euro has largely reduced the risks which could justify large fees," he wrote.

Cecchini's comments come as the European Commission prepares to unveil a new 'single market action plan' to breathe new life into the project, a decade after the EU pledged to remove internal barriers to trade.

Paulo Cecchini, the architect of the European Union's single market, says the Union should lower its ambitions in the multi-billion euro public procurement market.