Defence: Procurement

(asked on 29th March 2019) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to his oral contribution of 25 March 2019, Official Report, column 6, what steps the EU Commission has taken with regard to applying article 346 to the procurement of support ships by other member states.


Answered by
Stuart Andrew Portrait
Stuart Andrew
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
This question was answered on 3rd April 2019

The European Commission's evaluation report on the Defence Procurement Directive in 2016 can be found at:

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52016DC0762&from=en

The accompanying Commission Staff Working Document can be found at:

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52016SC0407&from=EN

The report found that some Member States may be interpreting exemptions such as Article 346 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union too broadly, resulting in an uneven application of the Directive. The report concluded that the Commission needed to take action to start infringement procedures where serious breaches of European Union law are identified. Consequently, the Commission sent infringement notices to a number of Member States in 2018 for not correctly applying the Directive. I am unable to comment further on these ongoing cases.

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