The European Commission has recently proposed that e-procurement should become mandatory across the EU by mid-2016.
One of the flanking measures was to organise a conference to highlight the opportunities offered by electronic procurement (e-procurement). And that is exactly what the European Commission and the European Parliament did.
The First Annual Conference on Electronic Procurement
One of the speakers at the The First Annual Conference on Electronic Procurement was Michel Barnier. Yes, the same Michel Barnier that said that e-invoicing was one of the corner stones towards a Digital Single Market.
And this is what Michel Barnier said about the EC’s e-procurement goals:
- “e-Procurement should become the rule, not the exception. That’s why the European Parliament and the Council are considering a reform bill that should make e-Procurement the standard, throughout the EU, by mid-2016.”
- The European Commission is setting the example by making its software for electronic procurement available as open source. This includes Open e-Prior and Open Peppol, both available on the EC’s open source repository, Joinup.
- Modernising procurement should include simplification of the rules and lowering of the threshold for small and medium-sized businesses.
- Electronic procurement will do more than improve competition. “It will help to make government more efficient. It also improves integrity of and traceability of the process, and that deters corruption, which we all know often happens in public procurement.”
- Technology by itself will not transform government. “Change requires courage and political will. But technology is one of the tools for change.”
More information on and presentations from the Annual Conference on Electronic Procurement
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