Non-Subscriber Extract
EU shakes up Europe's defence market laws
11 September 2009
The 27 EU nations now have just under two years to transpose a newly finalised EU directive designed to liberalise military procurements between them.
Whether this will proceed in haphazard fashion – with each member state moving at its own pace – or benefit from a more co-ordinated approach among national capitals is the issue, say EU sources and policy experts.
Officials in Brussels hint that a so-called 'big bang' approach to opening national defence tenders to pan-EU competition would be a novel – and fairer – way of implementing the procurement directive since no one EU member state would liberalise later than its neighbours.
"The idea has been mulled," one EU military official told Jane's earlier this year. "It would make sense because we see the member states eyeing each other, wondering who's going to make the first step."
The new directive on defence and security procurement officially became EU law on 21 August and gives the member states 24 months to convert it into national law.
As the European Commission notes, it is "tailor-made to the specificities of defence and security procurement contracts" regarding their complexity and sensitivity.
Unlike the EU's more general procurement guidelines, which govern procurement procedures in other sectors, the new defence directive lays down special rules for defence and security.
However, there are a couple of potential loopholes in two economically sensitive areas: offsets and defence research and development.