TED (Tenders Electronic Daily)

TED, Tenders Electronic Daily, is the official European database for public procurement notices (§ 4-5 letter b of the Public Procurement Regulations (anskaffelsesforskriften); the § references on this page are to the Regulations). It is the Supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union for public procurement (OJ S), and the notices are published by the Publications Office of the European Union. It carries notices under the EU procurement rules from the whole EEA, and some from countries outside it.

The Regulations are divided into parts by type of contract and estimated value. From Norway, TED receives competitions under Part III, which covers supply, service and works contracts at or above the EEA thresholds. It also receives health and social services at or above NOK 8.7 million (Part IV) and special services (særlige tjenester) above NOK 8.7 million, which otherwise follow Part II, which applies from NOK 1.3 million up to the EEA thresholds (except health and social services), and to special services from NOK 1.3 million with no upper limit. The contracting authority publishes the notice in Doffin, and Doffin forwards it to TED (§ 21-1). The same applies to voluntary ex ante transparency notices (intensjonskunngjøringer) and contract award notices, and to prior information notices unless the contracting authority publishes them on its buyer profile instead, in which case only a notice of the buyer profile goes to TED (§ 21-3 (2) and § 21-4). Directive 2014/24/EU on public procurement (the Directive) also allows contracting authorities to publish notices they are not required to publish. The utilities sector, concession contracts and defence have their own thresholds; see the page on EEA threshold values.

A Norwegian notice must be written in Norwegian and in one of the official languages of the EU, and only the EU-language version is authentic (§ 21-1 (2)). Under the Directive (Article 51(3)), the notice of a competition is published in full in the language the contracting authority has chosen, and a summary of the important elements in the other official languages of the EU. Norwegian is not one of them. We have not checked which translations TED shows in practice.

For Norwegian competitions you usually do not need TED. Norwegian contracting authorities send their notices through Doffin (§ 21-1), so a Norwegian notice in TED is also in Doffin. According to Doffin, it is published first in TED and within one hour in Doffin too. In an open procedure, the minimum time limit for tenders is still counted from the day the notice was sent to TED; see the question on time limits below.

TED is where you find competitions in the rest of the EEA. The procurement directives are part of the EEA Agreement (Article 65 and Annex XVI), and the Agreement prohibits discrimination on grounds of nationality (Article 4). Above the EU thresholds, a Norwegian supplier can therefore take part in a competition in another EEA country, for example Sweden or Germany, without being treated differently because it is Norwegian. The right to take part is not a right to win, and the contracting authority may set the requirements that the other country's rules allow. Below the thresholds, the country's own rules apply, but if the contract is of certain cross-border interest, the EEA principles of non-discrimination and transparency still apply. The EU thresholds in euros are on the page on EEA threshold values.

TED shows the notice. The tender documents and the submission are with the contracting authority. Advice: before you spend time on a competition in another country, check which language the tender must be written in, where the documents are and how the tender must be submitted.

A Norwegian supplier of software for schools is looking for contracts in the Nordic countries. In TED it finds a Finnish municipality advertising licences and operation for EUR 400,000. That is above EUR 216,000, the EU threshold for supply and service contracts from contracting authorities other than central government authorities, so the EU rules apply, and the Norwegian supplier can take part without being treated differently because it is Norwegian. The notice is in Finnish, so the supplier has it translated, checks whether tenders may be submitted in English and gets the tender documents from the municipality's system.

The same week, a Norwegian county authority (fylkeskommune) advertises a similar contract for NOK 3 million. That is above NOK 2.5 million, the EEA threshold for county authorities, so the notice appears both in Doffin and in TED, where Finnish and Swedish suppliers can find it.