Helsinki Bus Ruling Opens Door to Green Contracts

BRUSSELS, Belgium, September 18, 2002 (ENS) - Environmental campaigners have hailed a European court decision supporting Helsinki City Council's purchase of a fleet of low pollution buses as a "landmark" development in their efforts to green public procurement law in the European Union.

A coalition of 13 groups is now calling for a rewrite of draft new procurement rules to take account of the judgement.

In a ruling delivered Tuesday, the European Court of Justice said that Helsinki was justified under European Union law when it included the buses' emission profile in the criteria determining its choice from a range offered by prospective contractors.

EU legislation states that authorities must accept the "economically most advantageous" tender, often taken to be the cheapest.

Passengers board a bus in Helsinki made by the company that won the decision, Concordia Bus Finland (Photo courtesy Concordia Bus Finland)

Internal market ministers are due to finalize their position on a revision of procurement law later this year.

The campaigners say that, in a bid to squeeze out the scope for corruption in public procurement, the ministers could make it even more difficult to include environmental and social considerations in contracts.

British rapporteur MEP Stephen Hughes welcomed the court's ruling, saying it "confirmed the validity" of the European parliament's approach to the laws.

Passengers wait for a Concordia bus to stop.

The court rejected this line of argument, but said that there are conditions on the way environmental criteria could be applied in procurement contracts. They must be "connected to the subject matter of the contract," must not give "unrestricted freedom of choice" of tender," and must be explicitly mentioned in tender notices.

The European Commission has previously emphasized this last point as a way of introducing green requirements into contracts.

{Published in cooperation with ENDS Environment Daily, Europe's choice for environmental news. Environmental Data Services Ltd, London. Email: envdaily@ends.co.uk}