Joint Decleration by the Germany Railway Industry Association (VDB) and the Fédération des industries ferroviaires (FIF) on the International Procurement Instrument (IPI)
The rail industries in Germany and France are global market leaders in zero emission mobility, standing for the resilient European high-tech industry of the future. Clean mobility, key to the EU’s climate targets, is the next European success story, but there is an important prerequisite: a level playing field to facilitate industrial leadership in the future and European strategic sovereignty. The Fédération des Industries Ferroviaires (FIF) and the Verband der Bahnindustrie in Deutschland (VDB) e.V are fully committed to a market-based regulatory framework in the EU, to free trade worldwide and to rule-based competition. Therefore, VDB and FIF are gravely concerned about competition-distorting asymmetries in the current EU competition framework.
FIF and VDB point out that as a result of a legal loophole, EU state aid law has so far only been applied to value added in the EU. In stark contrast, EU state aid rules do not apply to non-European state-owned enterprises (SOE), bidding for public tenders in the Single Market. Such asymmetric framework conditions, if not duly corrected, are likely to erode industrial structures within the EU in the long run.
Therefore, FIF and VDB strongly welcome the fact that the EU is aiming to establish fair competitive conditions in international public procurement through more reciprocity with the International Procurement Instrument (IPI). The approach is ground-breaking for making existing EU law fit for globalization. The IPI must effectively complement existing EU law and include strong anti-circumvention provisions. FIF and VDB thus strongly support the amendments by the European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade and call on the Members of the European Parliament to continue to advocate strict EU State aid legislation, which must apply to all bidders in the EU, under the aegis of the EU Commission during the upcoming Trilogue negotiations on the IPI and to urgently work for its rapid adoption.
Please find the Joint Declaration by The German Railway Industry Association (VDB) and the Fédération des Industries Ferroviaires (FIF) on the International Procurement Instrument (IPI) here.