CETA - 5. Government productment (En)

CETA's
public procurement liberalization provisions will allow for a great opening of
the Parties procurement markets to foreign competition. 

Exclusions
will however apply for certain sensitive issues will apply. Governments
maintain the ability to set broad exclusions for:

  1. National security reasons and measures that are necessary to protect public morals, order and safety; - Reasons pertaining to human, animal or plant life or health;
  2. Intellectual property; - Measures regarding goods or services of persons with disabilities, philanthropic institution or prison labor;
  3. Issues touching aboriginal business. 

Governments
shall possess the right to give preferences to their domestic companies when
using grants, loans and fiscal incentives or in the case of procurements below
threshold value (see sections 1. and 2. below for threshold ranges). 

They will also maintain flexibility in determining technical considerations - including social and environmental criteria to be part of contract requirements - and in deciding on the form of procurement (open or limited). 

1.The European Union

By
providing Canada preferential access to the EU's $2.7 trillion
government-procurement market, the EU is granting the most favorable and
comprehensive market access it has ever offered to any member of the G-20. 

Canadian
companies will be able to sell to the 28 member states of the EU, the EU-level
institutions (European Commission, European Parliament, and the European
Council), as well as thousands of regional and local government entities within
the EU. 

For EU
businesses, this possibility applies for markets exceeding a certain value
(procurement contracts ranging from 130,000$ to 5 million special drawing
rights). The EU also offers a more comprehensive coverage than Canada for
important sectors such as energy, bodies governed by public law, cultural
industries and public transit. 

It should
be noted that there are specific exclusions from the European Union's
procurement market, namely for:

  1. Ports and airports;
  2. Broadcasting;
  3. The Postal sector;
  4. Shipbuilding and maintenance by utilities, bodies governed by public law and local authorities. 

2. Canada

Likewise,
CETA allows EU companies to compete at the federal, provincial and municipal
Canadian public procurement markets, making it the most comprehensive and
favorable market access offered by Canada under any of its Free Trade Agreements. 

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Canadian threshold ranges from 205,000 $ to $7.8 billion, and covers a broad
range of sectors such as energy and mass transit. 

Procurements
in certain areas, such as those touching public health and aboriginal
populations, are however excluded from coverage. There are also exclusions in
sectors such as:

  1. Agricultural goods which are part of a food program;
  2. Works of art and cultural industries in Quebec and for all municipalities, school boards and academic institutions in all other provinces and territories;
  3. Procurement for co-production and broadcasting time (through all of Canada);
  4. Research and development;
  5. Shipbuilding and repair (in some provinces);
  6. Sensitive goods that are procured by security-mandated entities, such as police forces;
  7. All major ports and airports; - Certain other regional economic development exclusion.

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