Dear Mrs P.,
On 5 November 1997, you made a complaint to the European Ombudsman against the European Commission. You alleged that the Commission had wrongly refused the bid you had submitted under a tender procedure on the award of public service translating contracts.
On 2 December 1997, I forwarded the complaint to the President of the European Commission. The Commission sent its opinion on 10 March 1998. I forwarded the opinion to you with an invitation to make observations, which I received on 8 June 1998.
I am writing now to let you know the results of the inquiries that have been made.

THE COMPLAINT

The background to the complaint is in summary the following:
The complainant is a translator by profession. She applied for a translation contract under the Commission's programme of calls for tender. Her application was refused on the grounds of non compliance with point 13f of the admissibility criteria(1). Point 13f requires applicants to provide evidence of having translated at least 1500 pages into the target language from any language during a specified 3-year period.
The complainant put forward that this requirement could not be met by translators from the Eastern Länder in Germany as they had had less opportunity to reach such a high number of translated pages. According to the complainant, the export oriented regional market did not have a high demand for translations from French into German.
Against this background, the complainant lodged the complaint with the European Ombudsman.

THE INQUIRY

The Commission's opinion
In relation to the relevant points, the Commission stated the following:
The Translation Service of the Commission published a call for tenders for translation services into German in order to conclude a new set of framework contracts and to continue to meet the institution's needs for external translation services without interruption.
In order to select the applicants, the awarding authority has to establish the technical and economic competence of those who respond to the call for tenders. The selection criteria are set out in point 13 of the notice and constitute a set of requirements which reasonably can be met by an established, full-time professional translator. Applicants must meet all the requirements under point 13 of the tender notice in order to be considered for selection.
Any applicant failing to supply full and satisfactory information under any of the sub-points of section 13 was rejected.
The External Translation Unit keeps details of all applicants on file, and encourages them to update their files with any new information which may be relevant. In this way they may be informed of any future calls for tenders which the Commission may publish for the provision of translation services into its official languages.
The complainant's observations
In her observations, the complainant maintained her complaint.

THE DECISION

1. The selection criteria are set out in point 13 of the application notice. According to point 13f the following applies:

"Die Bewerber müssen f) nachweisen (z.B. in Form von Bilanzen, Rechnungskopien usw.), daß sie, ungeachtet des Fachgebietes, zwischen dem 1.1.1994 und dem 31.12.1996 mindestens 1.500 Seiten ins Deutsche übersetzt haben;".

Point 13f requires therefore that applicants provide evidence of at least 1500 pages, translated into German during a specified 3-year period.
2. It is for the Commission to select the technical criteria for the award of contracts. The Commission has explained its reasoning for adoption of the criterion in question. The Ombudsman's inquiry has revealed no evidence to suggest that the criterion was not objectively justifiable.
3. The complainant claims that the Commission should not have used the criterion because of differences in the ability of contractors from different regions to meet to criterion.
4. The Ombudsman is not aware of any legal rule or principle which would prevent the Commission from using an objectively justifiable criterion in a call for tender because of differences in the ability of contractors from different regions to meet the criterion.
5. On the basis of the European Ombudsman's inquiries into this complaint, there appears to be no maladministration by the Commission. The Ombudsman therefore closes the case.
The President of the European Commission will also be informed of this decision.
Yours sincerely
Jacob SÖDERMAN

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(1) Beschränkte Ausschreibung der Europäischen Kommission, Referat Externe Übersetzung, (97/S 62 - 36298/FR).