Effective Procurement Methods
Based on the enhanced mandate of the EDA following the Lisbon Treaty and in line with the current Pooling & Sharing initiatives, Effective Procurement Methods (EPM) focus on the development of innovative ways to consolidate the demand side of the European Defence Equipment Market and indeed to identify current common demand.
Off-the-shelf purchases have been identified as an interesting area to achieve this consolidation. In this field, savings for Member States are expected to be more visible as fewer variants result in a more streamlined production for industry and higher economies of scale.
Off-the-shelf procurement, not being focused on the development phase, ensures a higher level of harmonisation. It is also understood that a more frequent use of common procurement methods will lead to more nations employing the same equipment and will therefore increase their interoperability.
Moreover, collaborative procurement may increase cross-border competition which again is a key factor in market terms. The EPM initiative is seen as a true contribution to creating a competitive, transparent and open European Defence Equipment Market and as a means to implement the Defence Procurement Directive (2009/81/EC).
In practical terms, the EPM initiative comprises both the development of a methodology to identify common demand and the setting-up of guidelines to facilitate the cooperation between participating Member States willing to pool their demand and the related contracting.
Once common demand and Member State willingness to cooperate has been identified, the Agency could be entrusted to establish and implement common procurement cases.
As the EDA is an output-oriented Agency, the EPM concept will be developed on the basis of pilot cases. Preparatory work to find potential candidates has been started and first contacts with interested participating Member States have shown very positive feed-back.
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