European International Contractors
EIC
Der EIC e.V.
ID: 60857724758-68
Lobbying Activity
Meeting with Hildegard Bentele (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur) and Hauptverband der Deutschen Bauindustrie
15 Oct 2025 · Global Gateway
Meeting with Felix Fernandez-Shaw (Director Directorate-General for International Partnerships) and
9 Jul 2025 · Shaping a new Team Europe approach towards LAC in order to increase the success rate of EU Railways industry on tenders on the region.
Meeting with Agnese Papadia (Cabinet of Commissioner Dan Jørgensen), Philippe Moseley (Cabinet of Commissioner Dan Jørgensen)
15 Apr 2025 · Affordable housing
Meeting with Sergio Oliete Josa (Head of Unit Directorate-General for International Partnerships)
17 Feb 2025 · Preparation of EIC’s Workshop on Global Gateway on 10 October 2025 (Vienna)
Response to EU financing instrument to support Ukraine
5 Sept 2023
FIEC and EIC have analysed the proposed Regulation on establishing a Ukraine Facility against our Recommendations for the Future Reconstruction of Ukraine. We commend the unprecedented support of appr. 76 billion Euro provided by the EU, MS and European financial institutions for Ukraine since the beginning of Russias war of aggression. We are supportive of the proposed financing instrument, and we welcome Art. 3(2) to help Ukraine to rebuild and modernise infrastructure damaged by the war and to repair, rebuild and improve social infrastructure. However, we express our reservations against certain technical details of the proposed Regulation, relating specifically to eligibility and public procurement. Eligibility We welcome the general eligibility rule in Art. 11(1a), that participation in procurement for activities financed under the Ukraine Facility shall be open to nationals of and legal persons established in either the EU Member States, the EEA, in countries of the EU Neighbourhood Area, including Ukraine, or countries benefitting from Pre-Accession assistance. We further support the principle of reciprocity in Art. 11(1b) and the requirement in Art. 11(3) that all supplies and materials financed and procured under this Facility shall generally originate from any country referred to in para. 1(a) and (b), unless not feasible at reasonable conditions. By contrast, we ask for the deletion of Art. 11(5) which stipulates that for actions jointly co-financed or implemented in direct or indirect management with such entities or for actions implemented by Ukrainian entities under Chapter III of this Regulation, the eligibility rules of those entities or Ukraine shall also apply in addition to the rules established under this Article. A more restricted eligibility would be in line with the EUs general approach to implementing reforms in Eastern European candidate countries where Art. 11 of the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA III Instrument), Regulation (EU) 2021/1529) restricts eligibility to nationals and legal persons mentioned above in Art. 11(1). The eligibility rule in Art. 11(1a) incentivises competition between companies from more than 50 countries and facilitates maximum use of local content, as Ukraine is one of the eligible countries. In addition, the number of eligible entities is not closed as Art. 11(1b) enlarges the scope to entities from countries for which reciprocal access to external assistance in Ukraine is established. Public Procurement FIEC and EICs Recommendations emphasise the importance of the project preparation phase. Regrettably, the proposed Regulation lacks any instruction or guidance relating to the fundamental building blocks for the procurement of infrastructure projects. Art. 18 (only) obliges the Commission to assess the relevance, comprehensiveness and appropriateness of the Ukraine Plan, taking into account whether the methodologies and processes used for the selection and implementation of projects, are appropriate or effective. FIEC and EIC ask for clarification in the proposed Regulation that the Practical Guide on Contract Procedures for EU External Action (PRAG 2021) also applies to the Ukraine Facility and that Contracting Authorities in Ukraine shall use the PRAG, as the PRAG 2021 governs the projects and programmes funded under the external financing instruments initiated by the EU, DG INTPA and DG NEAR and applies to all procurement and procedures launched as of 15 December 2021. It should further be clarified that e-procurement systems, specifically the system of reversed auctions, are not suitable for the procurement of large infrastructure works. The proposed Regulation should mention the importance of international contract standards (FIDIC) as well as the possibility to use open book and integrated project delivery mechanisms, which provide transparency and are particularly suited for the implementation of infrastructure projects in Ukraine
Read full responseResponse to Addressing distortions caused by foreign subsidies
28 Oct 2020
EIC fully supports the proposed building blocks for new legal instruments tackling distortive foreign subsidies and holds that taking legislative action at EU level (Option 2) is the most promising way forward. We are in favour of developing new legal instrument(s) – in particular dedicated to the identification of foreign subsidies in public procurement – which provide assessment mechanisms regarding distortive foreign subsidies as well as adequate redressive measures to guarantee a level playing field for all economic operators and the institutional set up for the implementation and enforcement of such mechanisms. However, any legislative instrument must foresee the difficulties of revealing and calculating from the outside the true amount of subsidisation of third-country state-owned enterprises, i.e. the type and form that these subsidies take and whether EU state aid categorisation can cope with such matter. We anticipate that third-country state-owned enterprises might argue that they operate legally and financially autonomous under commercial law and claim to be free from supervision of the state. Hence, the need to scrutinise the state’s control of capital, the direction of financial flows to state-owned enterprises, and preferential access to critical inputs at below market rates. EIC recommends that EU legislative framework should stipulate an assumption that prima facie evidence for subsidies has been fulfilled in case that a SOE or one of its affiliated companies is managed and/or ultimately controlled by a government entity. In parallel, EIC would support the adaptation of the European Procurement Directives in the area of inserting stricter reciprocity rules and a mandatory definition of and obligation to reject abnormally low bids, as laid down for instance in the World Bank Procurement Procedures.
EIC believes that a non-regulatory approach (Option 1) will not improve the current situation with regard to distortive third-country subsidies in public procurement procedures in the EU Internal Market, mainly for the reason that there is broad evidence that national contracting authorities often have an incentive to accept attractive bids even if they suspect that foreign subsidies are involved. Furthermore, there is already sufficient ‘soft’ guidance for contracting authorities on public procurement, including on the identification of ‘abnormally low bids’ available, for instance the EU Communication on the participation of third country bidders and goods in the EU procurement market (cf. C(2019) 5494 final dated 24/07/2019). The problem with the non-regulatory approach is that soft guidance needs to be implemented in some form on the level of EU Member States in order to become a source of information for the sub-central entities, such as contracting authorities on the municipal or provincial level. Anecdotal evidence suggests that respective EU guidance documents will not be mainstreamed on a country-wide basis.
EIC believes that addressing foreign subsidies through international rule-making (Option 3) will not be feasible in the near future given that the WTO Working Group on the Interaction between Trade and Competition Policy (WGTCP), which was established in 2001 to study various aspects of this issue, is inactive since more than 15 years. We do not believe – also considering current trade disputes between large WTO members – that it is realistic to expect a general readiness amongst WTO signatories to open negotiations on distortive subsidies in the services sector or the regulation of state-owned enterprises. As far as bilateral trade agreements are concerned, the EU-China negotiations on a Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) indicate the difficulties of such an approach. A decade has passed since these negotiations started and, whilst some progress has been made, many tensions remain and prospects of reaching a deal by the end of this year are slim.
Read full responseResponse to Elements for an EU Strategy on connecting Europe and Asia
5 Mar 2018
European International Contractors (EIC) has as its members construction industry trade associations from fifteen European countries and represents the interests of the European construction industry in all questions related to its international construction activities particularly with respect to the political, legal, economic and financial framework conditions for the international business. European international contractors are operating for more than a century in all corners of the world. In 2016, the international turnover of companies associated with EIC’s Member Federations amounted to more than €170 billion and an international market share of 50%.
EIC congratulates the European Commission for having composed the very informative Joint Staff Working Document SWD(2019) 436 final and our federation is in favour of a better connectivity between Europe and Asia, in particular in the transport sector. We further support the principles that are guiding the EU's approach to connectivity, including the observance of Labour, social and environmental standards as well as sustainability, transparency, market principles, open procurement rules, a level playing field as well as equal treatment and equal Access. We trust that the EU as a whole will promote these principles not only in ist own actions and activities but will also press the Iinternational Financing Institutions active in the region, i.e. the EBRD, the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, to incorporate and apply these principles and related international standards in its procurement policies and Tenders.
Whilst we would encourage the EU and its Member States to liaise further with these actors, i.e. the International Financing Institutions active in the region, to improve the Euro-Asia connectivity, for the following reasons we discourage the EU to become engaged in non-multilateral policy or financing activities:
Firstly, according to the Global Infrastructure Hub, launched by the G20 in 2014, has analysed that from all regional investment gaps the one in Asia is the smallest one. The GI Hub suggests that investment needs in the Americas are 47 percent greater than forecast investment under current trends. For Africa the equivalent figure is 39 percent. For Asia the figure is only 10 percent.
Secondly, recent analysis suggests that the principle mentioned above regarding open procurement rules and a level playing field as well as equal treatment and equal access are not guaranteed under bilateral initiatives. For instance, the Financial Times reported on 24 January 2018 that "...of the contractors working on China-funded transport infrastructure projects in 34 Asian and European countries, 89 percent were Chinese, leaving 11 per cent from elsewhere, according to the study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think-tank. The discrepancy challenges the rhetoric that Beijing has used to promote its “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI), a signature policy of Xi Jinping, China’s leader, which seeks to build infrastructure to win friends in some 70 countries". The study mentioned by the FT is attached and elaborates: "Out of all contractors participating in Chinese-funded projects within the Reconnecting Asia database, 89 percent are Chinese companies, 7.6 percent are local companies (companies headquartered in the same country where the project was taking place), and 3.4 percent are foreign companies (non-Chinese companies from a country other than the one where the project was taking place). In comparison, out of the contractors participating in projects funded by the multilateral development banks, 29 percent are Chinese, 40.8 percent are local, and 30.2 percent are foreign".
Against that background, EIC suggests that the EU focuses its engagement for a better Euro-Asian Connectivity on either a mutilateral Approach or on its own 3 Financing Insruments, the DCI, the ENI and the PI.
Read full responseMeeting with Neven Mimica (Commissioner) and
7 Sept 2015 · Role of private sector in public infrastructure projects in developing countries