EDA to Launch New European Procurement Code on July 1, 2006

In our October 2005 article “EU Defense Ministers Take Initial Steps to Open Up Arms Competition,” DID pointed to the EU’s European Defense Agency, its radical push for greater integration in Europe’s defense industry, and its less radical approach to greater cooperation on transnational European defense procurement programs. DID covered the issues of stricter European Commission enforcement, narrowed exemptions from open European defense contracts under EU Article 296 ‘national security interests’ clause, the local political interests that will make this a difficult row to hoe, the offsetting role lower defense spending is playing in fostering integration, and the underlying rivalry with NATO that cannot entirely be hidden. A recent EDA release notes that the new European defence equipment market will be launched on 1 July, with the participation of all but three of the 25 EU Member States… The market will operate on the basis of the November 2005 Code of Conduct on Defence Procurement, whereby defence contracts worth more than EUR 1 million (currently about $1.2 million dollars) would be advertised on a single electronic portal so companies across Europe could tender for them. It is also intended to make the criteria for selecting bidders and awarding contracts more […]