Procurement: Internal rules on Negotiated Procedures for appropriations of Political Groups

Mordechai Sadagursky made this access to documents request to European Parliament Automatic anti-spam measures are in place for this older request. Please let us know if a further response is expected or if you are having trouble responding.

The request was successful.

Dear European Parliament,

Under the right of access to documents in the EU treaties, as developed in Regulation 1049/2001,
I am requesting all documents related to the internal rules requiring negotiated procurement procedures for appropriations of political groups,
instead of more competitive procurement procedures
as well as all documents related to the two cases spotted by ECA:

https://op.europa.eu/webpub/eca/audit-in... :
quote "the internal rules for the management of appropriations of the political groups were not in line with the Financial Regulation. This is because they do not require the use of open or restricted procurement procedures for high‑value contracts, but rather the use of negotiated procurement procedures, which limits competition. We identified two cases where political groups had awarded such high‑value contract"

Yours,
Mordechai Sadagursky

Our reference: 2024-0773

Dear Mr. Sadagursky,

The European Parliament hereby acknowledges receipt of your message, which
was registered on October 17, 2024.

All applications for public access to documents are treated in compliance
with Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 of 30 May 2001 regarding public access
to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents.

In accordance with the above-mentioned Regulation, your application will
be handled within 15 working days upon registration of your request.

Your personal data will be processed in accordance with Regulation (EU)
2018/1725 of 23 October 2018 on the protection of natural persons with
regard to the processing of personal data by the Union institutions,
bodies, offices and agencies and on the free movement of such data. A
detailed privacy statement is available [1]here.

The European Parliament reserves the right to ask for additional
information regarding your identity in order to verify compliance with
Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 and the European Parliament’s implementing
measures.

Your attention is drawn to the fact that you have lodged your application
via the AsktheEU.org website, which is a private website not officially
related to the European Parliament. Therefore, the European Parliament
cannot be held accountable for any technical issues or problems linked to
the use of this system.

In addition, please note that any personal data that you provide by using
AsktheEU.org website may be disclosed to the general public and visible on
this private website. The European Parliament cannot be held responsible
for such disclosure. Should you need to communicate directly to Parliament
any personal data and would like to avoid public disclosure, you may do so
from your private email address by using the following functional mailbox
address: AccesDocs(at)europarl.europa.eu

Best regards,

TRANSPARENCY UNIT
European Parliament
Directorate-General for the Presidency
Directorate-General for Interinstitutional Affairs and Legislative
Coordination
[2][European Parliament request email]
[3]www.europarl.europa.eu/RegistreWeb

References

Visible links
1. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegistreW...
2. mailto:[European Parliament request email]
3. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegistreWeb

Our reference: 2024-0773

Dear Mr Sadagursky,

This concerns your request under [1]Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 for
public access to documents relating to the rules governing the procurement
procedures carried out by political groups, as well as to documents
relating to two specific cases of contracts awarded by political groups,
reported in European Court of Auditors’ [2]report of 2023.

As regards the rules on procurement procedures undertaken by political
groups of the European Parliament, please consult the [3]Rules on the use
of appropriations from budget item 400 and, especially, Rule 2.3 on
Procurement.

Please note that the administration of the European Parliament does not
normally hold any documents in relation to contracts awarded under budget
item 400 by the political groups. Indeed, the political groups are
themselves responsible for the allocation and use of such funds, in
application of the principle of indirect management of funds (Article
62(1)(c) of [4]Regulation 2024/2509), while the administration only
conducts general consistency checks on the annual financial and audit
reports.

Moreover, the political groups in the Parliament are separated from
Parliament's administration and, with due regard to [5]Rule 125(2) of the
Parliament’s Rules of Procedure, the documents drawn up or received by
them do not constitute documents of the Parliament within the meaning of
Article 2(3) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001.

Therefore, in order to receive more information and documents on contracts
awarded by political groups, we invite you to directly contact the
individual political groups.

The annual accounts of all political groups, which also provide data for
budget item 400, are regularly published in Parliament's website since
2001. You can find them [6]here.

Moreover, the lists of awarded contracts by each political group, with
value more than 15000€ are published in Parliament’s website and they are
available [7]here. More specifically, for 2022, you may access the
following lists of awarded contracts:

- EPP: [8]2022

- S&D: [9]2022

- Renew Europe: [10]2022

- GREEN/EFA: [11]2022

- ID: [12]2022

- ECR: [13]2022

- The Left: [14]2022

On this basis, Parliament considers your application handled and the
procedure closed. Should you wish to submit any new requests for specific
Parliament documents, [15]please do not hesitate to come back to us.

Best regards,

Please note that Parliament receives relevant documents regarding
contracts awarded by political groups only on a sample basis, on the
occasion of yearly controls it conducts on each European political party
with regard to the funding provided thereto (Art. 24 and 25 of the
[16]Regulation 1141/2014). Furthermore, an external auditor contracted by
the EP audits the accounts of the European political parties each year.
Therefore, the European political parties are the ones to detain
exhaustive information on the contracts they sign.

As regards the contracts you mention in your request, no relevant
documents held by Parliament’s administration have been identified.

Therefore, in order to receive more information and documents on contracts
awarded by political groups, we invite you to directly contact the
individual political groups, [17]here for the European Conservatives and
Reformists group.

A list of contracts awarded by each political group with value more than
EUR 15 000 is available in Parliament’s [18]website, [19]here for the ECR
group for 2022. Moreover, the annual accounts of all political groups,
including the ECR group, are available [20]here.

On this basis, Parliament considers your request handled and the procedure
closed. Should you wish to submit any new requests for specific Parliament
documents, [21]please do not hesitate to come back to us.

Best regards,

TRANSPARENCY UNIT
European Parliament
Directorate-General for the Presidency
Directorate-General for Interinstitutional Affairs and Legislative
Coordination
[22][European Parliament request email]
[23]www.europarl.europa.eu/RegistreWeb

References

Mordechai Sadagursky left an annotation (October 18, 2024)

All clear procedure-wise

AsktheEU.org

Procurement: Internal rules on Negotiated Procedures for appropriations of Political Groups

Mordechai Sadagursky left an annotation (October 18, 2024)

Act on what you've learnt

Requests like this

End of service transitional payments for MEPs and staff

EU Funding for political parties - Recovered

Decisions to reclaim funds from political parties

EFDD leaflet

ENF contracts

statistics on DDoS against EP and their attributed APTs

Public funding of political groups by European Parliament

audit finding : irregular negotiated procedure at EASA

Market competition evaluation before adopting ServiceNow technology at ECA

European Parliament presentation 05-02-2025 of KU Leuven Film