Nieuwe Common Procurement Vocabulary

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Public procurement: new classification system to provide EU businesses with easier access to public contracts

The European Commission has adopted a Regulation that updates the Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV), which is the EU-wide classification system for public procurement contracts. The new system will be more user-friendly and will take into account recent developments in technology, making it easier for businesses and SMEs to sell their products and services to public authorities across the EU. Every day, public procurement business opportunities worth almost € 1 billion are added to the Tenders Electronic Daily (TED) database (http://ted.europa.eu/), where all calls for tender in the EU are published. The CPV helps all EU businesses to easily identify these contracts irrespective of the original language of the tender notice, thereby increasing competition, efficiency and transparency.

Internal Market and Services Commissioner Charlie McCreevy said: "The new and improved CPV is a modern business tool that will make life easier for companies and for the 26,000 public authorities per year that put their contracts online. Businesses will also have the choice to be alerted electronically about contracts in their field. Identifying contract opportunities will be simple and straightforward, no matter where in the EU you are based."

About the new 'Common Procurement Vocabulary'

The CPV has been transformed into a more user-friendly classification, adapted to the needs of the electronic age as envisaged by the e-procurement Action Plan (see IP/05/66), and updated in line with the most recent developments in technology and services. The update of the CPV is the result of an unprecedented consultation exercise with the private and the public sectors throughout the EU and an extensive comparative study on other existing business classifications (see IP/06/272).

The emphasis has been put on a streamlined structure that serves purchasers, making the CPV more "product driven" and less "material driven". The previous version of the CPV contained, for instance, different codes for chairs depending if they were made of plastic, wood or metal. Now the accent is on the product itself (i.e. the chairs), and the additional specifications, if any, are to be added using appropriate codes of the supplementary vocabulary.

To bring the CPV into line with the standards of the e-procurement age, a broad system of 1,000 attributes has been created to complement the 9,000 main codes. The main elements of the specifications of contracts can now be fully described and translated by using the appropriate codes of the supplementary vocabulary, such as material, shape, mode of operation, designated use etc. For simple and common purchases this should reduce time spent on drafting and translating specifications.

Many new areas are now covered in greater depth by the CPV: software packages and applications, medical appliances, equipment for airports and air traffic control, sport goods, music instruments, environmental services, Internet- and wireless-telecommunication services. In line with the 2006 Communication on defence procurement, the classification was also improved for defence-related equipment and services by regrouping the existing and scattered codes in new groups and classes for more coherent presentation and by adding new codes such as military research and technology.

Finally, to ease the reading and understanding of the scope of EU public procurement legislation, the modifications to the CPV codes have been reflected in the references set out in annexes of the "public procurement Directives" i.e. Directives 2004/17/EC and 2004/18/EC on public procurement. However, it should be underlined that this adjustment does not have any consequences on the material scope of the Directives themselves.

There will be a period of six months between the publication of the Regulation and its application in order to allow CPV users to make the necessary modifications to their electronic systems.

The Regulation is available at:
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/publicprocurement/e-procurement_en.htm#cpv