On 26th June, the Conference on Electronic Procurement - Challenges and Opportunities will take place at the European Parliament in Brussels.

The conference is being organised by the European Commission and the European Parliament with the aim of highlighting the opportunities offered by electronic procurement (e-procurement) in order to simplify public procurement procedures and to achieve better procurement outcomes as well as better value-for-money in public expenditure.

The conference programme will include:

presentations from contracting authorities and companies that are already using e-procurement tools, pointing out the challenges they had to overcome and the benefits they have obtained;

a panel of senior European policy-makers and business people discussing the potential of e-procurement to address current economic and political challenges faced by the EU;

presentations on the e-procurement landscape in Europe, including e-procurement solutions and best practices in the marketplace.

The keynote speakers will include among others:

Alain Deckers, Head of Unit E-procurement and economic analysis of procurement markets, DG Internal Market and Services, European Commission;

Marc Tarabella, Rapporteur on the proposals to modernize public procurement legislation, Member of the European Parliament;

Jonathan Faull, Director-General DG Internal Market and Services, European Commission;

Malcolm Harbour, Chair of committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO), Member of the European Parliament;

Michel Barnier, Commissioner for Internal Market and Services, European Commission.

Primarily, elected representatives and senior decision-makers from local, regional and national authorities considering implementing e-procurement tools, and also company directors and senior managers seeking to better understand and use e-procurement tools to harness business opportunities across the EU are expected to attend the meeting.

For further information, please visit http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/publicprocurement/e-procurement/conferences/index_en.htm