FIEC Newsletter – 08 Οκτωβρίου 2019

On 4th October, FIEC and EFBWW organised a seminar – as part of the Social Dialogue TANSIRC project – aimed at promoting best practice in public procurement in the construction industry in Central and Eastern European countries. Amongst other issues, social partners from these countries focused on the problems created by public contracts awarded to the lowest price, which unfortunately remains the norm. Participants agreed that contracting authorities should rather chose the “Most Economically Advantageous Tender”. In this respect, they shared experience and ideas for possible improvements.

An International BIM Symposium will be hosted during Digital Construction Brussels at Tour and Taxis on 23 and 24 October. It will focus on four main themes: Hybrid Projects, Innovative Design, Circular Building & Digital Twin and Scanning. 4 keynote speakers include Dr. Thomas Liebich (Director of AEC3 Deutchland), Mitch Noryslawski (co-founder Ecodomus America), Shawn O’Keeffe (Chief Scientist and Co-founder at BIM & Scan LTD Ireland) and Martin Fisher (Professor Standford University & Director, Center for Integrated Facility Engineering America).

The SKILLCO project (www.skillco.eu) aims at setting and developing sectoral alliances for the transfer of knowledge and skills of Vocational Education and Training (VET) in construction. It is co-financed by the ERASMUS+ programme and covers Germany, Hungary and Slovenia.The main goals of the project are to define and identify existing and anticipated skill needs in specific fields (“green”, literacy and numeracy, occupational health and safety, vanishing skills) and on this basis to elaborate and define learning units.

In order to confirm their commitment to continue the cooperation after the end of the project (in January 2020) the project partners signed an Alliance and want to share their experience with other interested stakeholders across the EU. If you are also involved in VET-related issues and you would like to join the SKILLCO sector skills alliance you are kindly invited to sign the “Alliance support form” that you can find by clicking on the button below.

With regard to our recent joint EuDA-EIC-FIEC paper on a level playing field in construction services, it was with strong interest that FIEC followed the hearing of Commissioner-designate for Trade Phil Hogan in the International Trade Committee (INTA). To our satisfaction, MEPs asked several questions on fair competition in public procurement markets. Also, the construction industry welcomes that Phil Hogan stressed the need for strong defence instruments in order to have a leverage effect in international negotiations. In the coming weeks, Hogan will engage with Member States in order to identify how to make progress on the International Procurement Instrument (IPI). Together with its partners FIEC will closely follow future developments.