The utilities view [to European power station procurement standards]

To understand how the new European standards will be used by UK generators, it is perhaps useful to step back in time and quickly recall how these electric utilities have responded to the introduction of European Utilities Procurement Directive in 1992. It is suggested that what has developed over the past four years will provide the best clue to how the new standards will be approached. For PowerGen, as with other UK generators, the advent of the European Procurement Directive was at a time when the most fundamental change witnessed in the UK electricity was taking place, namely privatisation. It is believed, for reasons outlined below, that had the procurement rules been introduced into the CEGB, their impact and importance would have been far greater than they are today. Between 1989 and 1992, procurement, (`by procurement´ is meant the total process of acquiring goods and services and all the people involved in that process) was being driven by two forces, the force of the EU´s Single Market legislation and the force of privatisation. For the most part, these two forces had agendas that in terms of underlying principles should have been mutually supportive but were and still are in conflict with each other