Decisions by WTO bodies on the Information Technology Agreement are available in the WTO`s Analytical Indexes of Law and Practice Guide. These procedures can only be applied between the adjudicator powers clearly mentioned in the invitation to competition or the tender for this purpose and the economic operators participating in the framework agreement during the relevant period. electronic and aggregate information techniques and tools and guidelines for the interpretation and application of EU procurement legislation are available free of charge to help contracting authorities and economic operators, particularly SMEs, to properly apply EU procurement rules; and public procurement should be tailored to the needs of SMEs. Contracting authorities should be asked to use the code of good practice presented in the Commission`s 25 June 2008 working paper entitled `European Code of Good Practices to facilitate SMEs` access to public procurement`, as well as guidelines on how they can apply the public procurement framework for SMEs. To this end, and in order to strengthen competition, it is particularly necessary to encourage the contracting authorities to divide the major markets into lots. Such a distribution could be done on a quantitative basis, in order to better adapt the size of each contract to the capacity of SMEs or, on a qualitative basis, according to the different trades and specialisations concerned, in order to further adapt the content of each contract to the specialized sectors of SMEs or to the different later phases of the project. 5. For any change in the provisions of a public contract or framework agreement during its duration, a new contracting procedure under this directive is required in relation to the provisions of paragraphs 1 and 2. EU public procurement is showing a strong trend towards aggregation of demand by public buyers in order to achieve economies of scale, including lower prices and transaction costs, and to improve and professionalise purchasing management.
This can be achieved by concentrating purchases either according to the number of contracting powers involved, or in terms of volume and value over time. However, the aggregation and centralization of purchases should be closely monitored in order to avoid excessive concentration of purchasing power and collusion, to preserve transparency, competition and market access opportunities for SMEs. In addition, contracting powers may exclude an economic operator or exclude him from participating in a contracting procedure if the contracting authority can demonstrate, by appropriate means, that the economic operator is not complying with its obligations to pay taxes or social security contributions. Changes to the contract resulting in a slight change in the value of the contract up to a given value should always be possible without the need for a new contracting procedure. To this end, and in order to ensure legal certainty, this directive should provide for de minimis thresholds below which a new procurement procedure is not necessary.
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