Foreign firms fail to win EU tenders in Poland

According to the analysis made by the European Commission and the Polish government, 70% of the tenders for projects financed from the EU support funds is won by Polish companies. For the time being this is certainly true for projects financed from the pre-accession programs such as ISPA, Phare and Sapard whose value amounts to around EUR 1 billion a year. However, John O’Rourke, the deputy representative of the EU in Poland, said that winning a tender from the pre-accession programs was much more difficult as all documentation had to be prepared in English and the companies had to adhere to regulations different to those that govern national tenders. Moreover, Włodzimierz Dzierżaniowski, the deputy head of the Public Procurement Office (UZP) revealed that out of the 57 tenders conducted under the new regulations that give no preference to Polish companies, only one was won by a foreign company. Since the trend is likely to continue, most of the EUR 12.5 billion which Poland is to receive from the EU over the next three years will stay in the country and will not be transferred abroad in the form of profits of foreign companies. (Rzeczpospolita, pp. A1, B1) E.B.