Article 70
United Kingdom
Technical specifications shall afford equal access for candidates and tenderers and not have the effect of creating unjustified obstacles to competitive tendering. The specifications shall define the characteristics required of a product, service, material or work with regard to the purpose for which they are intended by the contracting authority.
The characteristics referred to in paragraph 1 shall include:
the quality levels;
environmental performance;
design for all requirements, including accessibility for disabled people;
the levels and procedures of conformity assessment;
fitness for use;
safety or dimensions, including, for supplies, the sales name and user instructions, and, for all contracts, terminology, symbols, testing and test methods, packaging, marking and labelling, production procedures and methods;
for works contracts, the procedures relating to quality assurance and the rules relating to design and costing, the test, inspection and acceptance conditions for works and methods or techniques of construction and all the other technical conditions which the contracting authority may impose under general or specific regulations in relation to the finished works and to the materials or parts which they involve.
The technical specifications shall be formulated as follows:
by reference to European standards, or to European technical approvals or common technical specifications, where such exist, to international standards or to other technical reference material produced by European standards bodies or, failing this, their national equivalents. Every reference shall be followed by the expression ‘or equivalent’; or
in terms of performance or of functional requirements; they shall be sufficiently detailed to enable tenderers to determine the purpose of the contract and the Agency to award the contract; or
by a mixture of those two formulation methods.
Where the Agency make use of the possibility of referring to the specifications referred to in point (a) of paragraph 3, they may not reject a tender on the grounds that it does not comply with those specifications if the tenderer or candidate proves, to the satisfaction of the contracting authority, by any appropriate means, that the tender meets in equivalent manner the requirements set.
Where the Agency makes use of the possibility provided for in point (b) of paragraph 3, of prescribing specifications in terms of performance or of functional requirements, they may not reject a tender which complies with a national standard transposing a European standard, a European technical approval or common technical specifications, an international standard or technical reference material produced by a European standards body, if those specifications relate to the necessary performance or functional requirements.
Save in exceptional cases, duly warranted by the subject of the contract, those specifications may not refer to a specific make or source, or a particular process, or to trade marks, patents, types or a specific origin or production which would have the effect of favouring or eliminating certain products or economic operators. Where it is not possible to provide a sufficiently detailed and intelligible description of the subject of the contract, the reference shall be followed by the expression ‘or equivalent’.