Joint report: Meeting of the CETA Committee on Government Procurement
December 4th, 2024 (by videoconference)
The 7th meeting of the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) Committee on Government Procurement took place on December 4th, 2024, in the form of a videoconference. Participants included representatives from 抖淫视频), Public Services and Procurement Canada, the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, the European Commission, and the Delegation of the European Union to Canada. Representatives from several provinces and territories of Canada were also present.
The EU updated Canada on a recent decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union concerning the access of third country bidders to EU government procurement, and EU Member States’ ability to legislate in this area. This decision could have implications for Canadian bidders with regard to procurement not covered under either the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA) or the CETA Chapter on Government Procurement.
The EU updated Canada on a number of domestic policy developments, including: the state of play of the International Procurement Instrument, the procurement elements of the Foreign Subsidies Regulation, the EU’s draft cybersecurity certification scheme for cloud services, and intended revisions of EU procurement legislation which will involve a public consultation to be launched soon.
Furthermore, the EU presented to Canada a new tool called “Access2Procurement for Buyers”. The principal purpose of this tool is to help EU contracting authorities find out which third country bidders have access to any of their intended procurements, based on the characteristic (entity, subject matter, estimated value) of the procurement at hand. Canada highlighted how the EU, with its Access2Procurement tool, and Canada, with the launch of CanadaBuys as a single point of access for all CETA-covered procurement notices, have both made significant progress in increasing transparency for suppliers and ensuring fair access to procurement opportunities.
Canada provided an overview of its work to implement reciprocal procurement policies, including information on the 2023 “Policy Statement on Ensuring Reciprocal Treatment for Canadian Businesses Abroad” and its impact on Canadian procurement policies.
The Parties had a discussion on the collection and exchange of statistics on CETA-covered contracts that have been awarded to Canadian and European suppliers. Canada reiterated its challenges related to collecting data on the origin of suppliers, noting that it could only commit to exchanging the statistics required by CETA Article 19.15.
In terms of next steps, the Committee on Government Procurement will report to the CETA Joint Committee on its key accomplishments.
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