Openbare aanbesteding: niet-nalevingsprocedure tegen Italië betreffende bankdiensten voor de Universiteit van Parma (en)
The European Commission has decided to send a reasoned opinion to Italy concerning the award of a contract for banking services for the University of Parma. This is the second stage of the infringement procedure as laid down in Article 226 of the EC Treaty. In the absence of a satisfactory reply within two months, the Commission may decide to refer the matter to the European Court of Justice.
The University of Parma awarded a three-year contract for banking services and cash management, which included particularly restrictive participation requirements, such as the need for the supplier to currently perform a cash management activity for Italian Universities reaching a level of bank transfers higher than € 250 million, and the need to have at least 12 offices in the commune of Parma.
The Italian Government claimed that these requirements were necessary due to the specificity and complexity of the services at stake, since they involve a significant number of different operations. With regards to the need for the service provider to have at least 12 offices in the commune of Parma, the Italian authorities maintained that this condition was necessary to fully provide the banking services also in the more peripheral areas, and to facilitate access to the service by those who already had contacts with the University, such as students living in Parma or University staff.
The Commission disagreed with the arguments of the Italian Government because the requirements laid down are contrary to the provisions of Directive 2004/18/EC. More precisely, the requirement relating to the need for the supplier to currently perform a cash management activity for Italian Universities could discourage foreign economic operators from submitting an offer to provide banking services for the University of Parma. Similarly, the need of having at least 12 offices in the commune of Parma is a discriminatory condition with respect to economic operators established in other Member States of the European Union. In fact, this second condition favours local operators, which would already have such a number of offices in Parma and, therefore, it could be more easily met by Italian enterprises than by foreign operators. Furthermore, this second condition is also disproportionate with regards to the subject-matter of the contract, insofar as there is no clear reason why the same service could not be supplied by another operator, which does not have the required minimum 12 offices in the commune of Parma.
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