1. Working Group on Small and Medium Enterprises Proposal for a working plan for 2005

2. Topic: Identifying innovative methods to promote participation from SMEs in public procurement  Examples: - Combinatorial procurement auctions - Small business set-asides - Electronic auctions - …..

3. Activities  Step 1: Identifying a set of innovative methods to facilitating entry from SMEs in public procurement  Step 2: Assessing the potential for applying these methods in EU public procurement. What are the pros and cons of different methods?  Step 3: Documenting the findings in a report at the end of 2005

4. Specifics  Presentation of 2-3 short cases at each meeting describing experiences with novel procurement methods.  Example: The Swedish National Road Administration recently tested combinatorial bidding in the awards of some 60 contracts for the updating of road markings on national roads with a good result: new and small firms submitted bids.