CATS政府採購談判的展望——以歐盟「GATS政府採購附件」提案為中心

Abstract

服務採購在政府採購市場所占有的比例向來即不低，特別是在大量委外的國家；若能增加這方面採購的透明化程度與市場競爭情形，其價值自是不言而喻。然而為了達此目的所進行的GATS政府採購談判，長期以來糾葛著世貿組織之政府採購透明化工作以及複邊政府採購協定之內建談判，始終面臨是否會與上述談判結果重複，以及是否會造成貨物與服務採購規範適用歧異等問題的挑戰。政府採購透明化談判因故暫告中止後，歐盟所提出的「GATS政府採購附件」草案似乎為此進度有限的談判帶來新的契機，然而旋即出現的二○○七年政府採購協定，又使其應否續行再度蒙上陰影。本文在檢視二○○七年政府採購協定與「GATS政府採購附件」草案後，發現無論是在政府採購不歧視的承諾上或是透明化規範的遵循上，附件草案均較二○○七年政府採購協定更有彈性，理論上會員接受的可能性也較高，是以儘管附件草案與二○○七年政府採購協定高度重疊，但以前者為基礎而繼續的GATS政府採購談判，將有助於政府採購規範多邊化漸進的達成，故仍有續行的實益。

The percentage of share that service procurement has in government procurement market has never been low, especially in those countries which heavily outsource. Thus it is without saying that the benefits will be great if the transparency and competition in such type of procurement can be increased. However, GATS government procurement negotiation, which is conducted for such purpose, has long been entangled with WTO government procurement transparency negotiation and the built-in negotiation of the plurilateral Government Procurement Agreement. As a result, it constantly faces the challenges of whether it will become repetition of the results of the other two negotiations and whether it will cause split application of procurement rules for goods and services. After the Working Group on Transparency in Government Procurement Practices ceased to operate, the “Annex to the GATS on Government Procurement” proposed by E.U. seemed to shed some light on this slow negotiation. Nevertheless, the Government Procurement Agreement (2007) shortly emerging once again cast doubt on the continuation of this negotiation. Based on the review of both the Government Procurement Agreement (2007) and the draft “Annex to the GATS on Government Procurement”, this paper finds that the said draft Annex as opposed to the 2007 Agreement is more flexible, whether in term of non-discrimination requirement or transparency disciplines, and more likely to be accepted by Members. Therefore, this paper concludes that even though the draft Annex highly overlaps the content of the 2007 Agreement, the GATS government procurement negotiation based thereon merits continuation for it will facilitate government procurement rules to be multilateralized gradually.