New rules on thresholds applicable to EU public procurement already published

Today we want to announce you a new change that will affect public procurement market in the European Union. As we already did in the past by detailing you developments such as the introduction of new CPVs in 2008 or the adaptation to the new features put in place by TED in March 2010, this time it is the matter for the changes introduced by Commission Regulation (EU) nº 1251/2011 of 30 November 2011 which modifies procurement Directives in respect to their application thresholds for the procedures for the awards of contract, and was published in the Official Journal on 2 December.

According to this Regulation, the minimum thresholds applicable to public procurement have been slightly increased. Although these changes will not be quite significant, the new figures will nevertheless have to be taken into account both by contracting authorities when launching procurement procedures, and by those companies interested in taking part in bidding processes for public contracts. The new thresholds will enter into force on 1 January 2012 and be applicable for two years.

Therefore, these new thresholds for the publication of public procurement announcements will change from 125,000 to 130,000 Euro in the case of services and supply contracts issued by central government bodies and from 193,000 to 200,000 Euro in the case of other contracting authorities. For services and supply contracts in the case of utilities and defence threshold will now pass for 387,000 to 400,000 Euro. In the case of work contracts and work concessions these figures will pass from 4,845,000 to 5,000,000 Euro.

On our side we will of course be prepared for any change which should be introduced regarding the tools and services on commercial intelligence based on public procurement that Euroalert.net provides for companies in Europe. We will make sure that you can keep on receiving tender alerts, requesting the lists of tender winners or authorities that you need, or receiving your product reports on public procurement, without being affected by these changes.

We would also like to take this occasion to remind you that if you want to keep track on new legislation published in the OJEU, Euroalert.net Customized Newsletters on EU information can certainly help you. They will allow you to keep up to date, not only about new legal developments, but also about news related to the European Union and funding opportunities for your projects. If you have any questions, you can send us an e-mail us to info@euroalert.net or contact us by any of the means described in our web.

The Representation of the European Commission in Spain launches a mobile application with the help of Euroalert.net

We are very proud to inform you on our participation in a very special project. Euroalert developed for the Representation of the European Commission in Spain an app for iPhone and Android in order to see its contents on mobile devices. Now, the app has been launched!

The European Commission's news, the European events held in Spain as well as the press calls for journalists interested in covering European issues, are available now on the phone via the free application that launched the Representation of the Commission European in Spain. The new mobile application which can be downloaded from Android phones and iPhone presents the European information in a simple and accessible way. On the same project, it is also presented an iGoogle gadget with the same features thereby allowing the contents from the Representation to this format.

As stated in the official press release, Francisco Fonseca, Head of Representation agrees to this way of presenting the activities of the European Commission in Spain because "it is a basic and necessary step to communicate with citizens and for European information comes to them rather than having to search actively. It aims to facilitate access to the European issues content according to the new and current technological ways of communication. He added that the applications are free so citizens will have even easier access to information on the European Union.

Euroalert.net, which developed the app and the gadget considers that with this step "the European Commission Representation is at the forefront of public institutions in their model of relationship with citizens through the new mobile channel." In addition, we are very pleased to have been able to assist the Commission in Spain to take this step and we're very pleased with the number of downloads so far because this means that the app is useful to citizens in their day to day.

Applications can be downloaded for free from the App Store and Android Market, from the Representation of European Commission in Spain website and from the online store of Euroalert.net. Your comments, tweets, and scores on it, can contribute to improve the application, making it more useful for you all.

Euroalert experience at the Open Days 2011

Once again, Euroalert has taken part at the Open Days 2011, the European week of Regions and Cities, and our experience, once again, has been very positive. The 9th edition of the Open Days has been a great success that has served to bring together experts and participants from across Europe. The 100 workshops organised with around 6000 participants were aimed at discussing many topics with a single goal, discussing how regions and cities can achieve sustainable growth and thus, help the EU out of the current crisis that we face. At the workshops, we heard ideas to achieve such goal, for example the creation of clusters with public-private funding (PPP) such as the one conducted by Castilla y León (Spain) to make real the “e-vehicle”. With this initiative, Castilla y León proposes a measure to improve the economy without forgetting the respect for the environment. In addition, many wondered at seminars how it would be possible getting out the European regions and cities of the crisis in compliance with this objective, i.e., how to create a truly sustainable economy and not just from an environmental point of view. Another idea heard at the Open Days was the creation of Euroregions, such as the Baltic Sea Euroregion or Pyrenees Mediterranean Euroregion. They consist in associations between border regions to get assistance to citizens more effectively. The associations are determined by the rule of the 150 km adopted by the European Commission, which means that partnerships can be formed only within an area of ​​150 km. Regional and local authorities do not agreed with this limit and asked the Commission representative during the workshop to remove such rule.

The shadow of the economic crisis has been very present throughout the week. Euroalert had the opportunity to ask the President of the Committee of the Regions herself, Mercedes Bresso, how the European Commission can help in the next budgetary period to the regions and cities at getting out of the current crisis. Ms Bresso recognized that the proposal of the Commission for the budget period 2014-2020 is quite good and defended the temporary creation of the intermediate regions concept. With the creation of this new category, she does not mean that more European funds will be granted to the regions; only an efficient way to distribute them. We thank to the president her kindness for making possible this interview.

In addition to attending a few seminars, Euroalert also had time to tweet the Open Days through the official event hashtag #euopendays, and thus, help you to watch live this great celebration of the regions and cities. Unfortunately there were not many "tweeters" telling what was happening at the Open Days, especially to find out what was being said within the workshops that we could not attend because an overlapping of the schedules. In any case, as in previous years, we thank you for your follow-up and also for the conversations we had in live via Twitter.

We hope you enjoyed our information through our news and tweets, and please, keep reading us in the coming days because Euroalert will tell you more about the topics discussed during the Open Days, such as the workshop on the future of micro-credit, the workshop on how to communicate regional policy today and after 2013 or the workshop how to perform better evaluations of structural funds expenditure by the regions.

Once again, Euroalert.net is going to be at the Open Days 2011, the most important annual event for European regions

Next week, from 10 to 13 October, it is going to take place in Brussels the most important annual event for European regions and municipalities, the Open Days 2011. Of course, Euroalert is going to be there to attend as many workshops and activities as we can during those days. As we published in Euroalert last July, the week of the regions is dedicated on this occasion to 'Investing in Europe's future: Regions and cities delivering smart, sustainable and inclusive growth'. The Committee of the Regions and the European Commission, Directorate-General for Regional Policy, in partnership with regions and cities from all over Europe, are organizing this important event in which more than 6,000 professionals will share experiences, information and best practices through about 100 workshops launched for the occasion.

And of course, Euroalert is going to have an active presence in the Open Days 2011. Euroalert team is covering the event on 'live' via Twitter and also with the regular publication of news. Among the workshops to be covered, Euroalert is going to attend one in which the Committee of the Regions' initiative 'Entrepreneurial Region of Europe' and the 'Small Business Act' are going to be explained. Also Euroalert is attending to the 'Financial Instruments enhancing access to RDI for companies to achieve Europe 2020 Flagship Initiative' workshop, in order to keep informed our readers on this topic. As you know, Euroalert provides information on the latest EU call for proposals opened and EU funding instruments is a very relevant topic to the Euroalert community.

These workshops and many others will be followed on live by Euroalert team. In addition to our Twitter and news coverage, we will tell you our experience on the Open Days 2011 through this blog, as we did in October 2010 and also in October 2009.  If you are taking part at the Open Days 2011 in Brussels and you want to contact us so we can attend your event or you'd like to talk about Euroalert products and services, you can always send us a direct message via Twitter or drop us an e-mail. In all the cases, we hope to provide as much information on what's happening during the Open Days 2011 as we can. And live! See you at the biggest event for regions!

10ders Alerts provides tender data in a reusable format

A couple of months ago we announced you the launch of the promotional free trial period for our alerting service on public tenders: 10ders Alerts. Since then, frequent improvements have been made not only in the  10ders Alerts interface, but also in the sources of information which are aggregated in order to provide a more comprehensive database of European public contracts. We have also added new data from tender announcement such as those provided by Open Data Euskadi, and improved the criteria that can be used to describe any company's products and services in a profile that will allow them to get the most relevant information on public tenders for their activity.

Since the launch of 10ders Alerts in January 2011, hundreds of companies from almost all European Union countries and even from outside the EU, have used the free trial period to evaluate the quality of service. Thanks to their suggestions, 10ders Alerts has improved its functionality. One of the most popular requests coming from users, which is referred to 10ders Alerts, was that the data provided by the alert system should be delivered in reusable formats - an essential characteristic of our service, given the intense activity of Euroalert within the Open Data movement.

Following that request, a new feature has been released this week: the possibility for companies to obtain relevant data from public tenders in a reusable format according to their product profile. This can be done by any subscriber simply by changing the delivery options in the 10ders Alerts dashboard:

Let's remember that Euroalert services for corporate clients already provide contents in different reusable formats which allow, e.g., the publication on other websites. However, subscribers to the alerting service in public tenders  are typically end users and, therefore, their approach should be different. Besides, as this service is mainly used by people whose usual working tools are the most common office packages, we chose Microsoft Excel as the format for providing tender alerts' contents by email.

If you are interested in testing this service for free, you only need to apply for it by sending us an email to TenderAlerts@euroalert.net, and we will provide you with the necessary assistance to opt-in.

The price of this new service is 45 euros/month (432 euros/year) although all new subscriptions as well as current customers will benefit until the end of the year of a reduced price of 20 euros/month (192 euros/year). We hope this new service which complements Euroalert intelligence products on public markets, will help all companies in the Euroalert community to improve their performance in public markets.

Euroalert presented as European Open Data initiative at the Digital Agenda Assembly

Last June 16th, we had the honour to make a presentation on Euroalert as leading Open Data company at European level in the Assembly of the Digital Agenda. As you know the European Digital Agenda 2020 is the EU strategy for the development of the digital economy in Europe, so the opportunity to make this presentation has been a great recognition of our work.
May and June, both months, have been very intense for Euroalert with regard to its participation in events in relation to Open Data. After participating in the Share-PSI seminar and the annual meeting of the Aporta project in Madrid, our participation to the Open Data workshop at the Digital Agenda Assembly has been a great culmination.
We are also excited to see how the Open Data community is keeping growing and it continues to arouse a great interest. The Open Data workshop was one of those who attracted more public and sparked more conversation on Twitter. The importance of the Open Data was also shown by the Open Data and Hack4Europe Challenge! competitions which awards were given at the Digital Agenda Assembly too by Neelie Kroes, Commission vice-president.
For those who could not attend or watch the event streamed, the Digital Agenda website put to your disposal all the presentations. We want to provide you here an extended version of the slides used to present Euroalert:Building a pan-European platform to aggregate public procurement data and deliver commercial services for SMEs powered by open data

We are very proud to have been part of this great event and we take this opportunity to thank you for your support. You are part of the Euroalert success in having the best information services with regard to the EU procurement services. From our side, we keep working hard for providing you the best service.

Euroalert will speak at the Digital Agenda Assembly

We are glad to share with you that Euroalert.net will be one of the speakers at the 1st Digital Agenda Assembly. We have been selected as a showcase of a European Open Data initiative to present our experience as a business that reuses EU daily contents and public contracts information. In particular, Euroalert will present at workshop nº 1: "Open data and re-use of public sector information".

Our director José Luis Marin will explain Euroalert experience in building the 10ders Information Services platform. With this platform, Euroalert intends to aggregate public procurement data from all over the EU and deliver added-value services primarily to SMEs.

We want to thank the European Commission for the opportunity that offers to Euroalert with this invitation. The workshop in which Euroalert participates, Open data and re-use of public sector information (hashtag #daa11psi), will take place on the 16th of June from 10h to 13h30 and will be streamed for those of you who will not be able to attend. If you want to have more information on the Euroalert participation, you can contact us via Twitter or by mail. See you in Brussels.

Euroalert will participate at the Aporta Project annual meeting on the Open Data initiatives in Spain: Challenges and Solutions

The meeting organized by the Aporta Project will take place on next Thursday 9 June in Madrid, just a year after of the last PSI Meeting 2010, which brought together European Open Data community with a great success. As occurred last year, Euroalert has been kindly invited to describe its business model which is based in the service that offers EU daily information adding value to the public sector information, such as calls for proposals to finance projects, the European legislation, daily European news and public tenders. Euroalert is glad to accept the invitation and it will attend to the event in order to support with its presence the advancement of Open Data culture in Spain.

The meeting will focus to the newest policies on PSI re-use, legal aspects of opening up public data, technical challenges on the way to open data, new business initiatives and new channels of participation and communication between authorities, entrepreneurs and citizens. Our director, Jose Luis Marin, will participate speaking on the Euroalert.net experience from 4 pm in the roundtable nº4, which focus on the "New business initiatives based on PSI reuse. What actions and measures can be promoted by governments to create the right conditions for innovation and new business based on PSI reuse? What economic value has the reuse of PSI?".

Of course, in the event's program there is detailed information on the topics to be discussed in the rest of the five interesting roundtables and the speakers who will take place in them. In addition, the event will be another opportunity to exchange views with the members of the Spanish Open Data community. Although registration is now closed, you can follow the event through Twitter, following the hashtag #SpainESdata and via streaming.

Euroalert wants to remind you that we will be from 8:30 am at the Auditorium of the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade. C/ Capitan Haya, 41 - 28071 - Madrid. If you want to meet us in person, you can always contact us via Twitter or by mail. Moreover, it will be a great opportunity in order to prepare Euroalert's participation at the 1st Digital Agenda Assembly in Brussels next week. Keep posting to this blog for further information on this event.

Presenting Euroalert at the workshop Share PSI prior to the Digital Agenda Assembly

As previously announced, Euroalert participated on 9 of May with many members of the European Open Data community at the workshop “Removing Road Blocks to a Pan European Market for PSI Reuse”, organized by the initiative W3C and ETSI: SharePSI.

Our position paper, 'Euroalert.net: Building a pan-European public procurement platform to aggregate data and commercial services for SMEs Deliver powered by open data' was selected to be presented, along with other interesting examples of services feeded by public sector information, on the table "Use Cases I" moderated by Margot Dor from ETSI.

In our intervention, we explained Euroalert experience in building the 10ders Information Services platform, throughout reusing public information data. With this platform, we intend to add data procurement from all over the EU and of course, the added-value services that we provide primarily to SMEs based on tender data.

10ders IS is a simple idea but at the same time it supposes a challenge as EU public procurement represents about 18% of the aggregate GDP of all member countries.

Of course, we try to contribute to the workshop explaining the obstacles that we are finding at every step, but also the satisfaction that is providing services to organizations and companies from 15 different countries. Especially considering that we are still at the beginning of our way and therefore we have a long way to create services and information to process.

As usually, we put at your disposal the presentation used in the workshop and we recommend you visiting the excellent collection of resources on the sessions that ETSI platform has conducted, and the article that our director has posted on his blog with a summary of his impressions.

Building a pan-European platform to aggregate public procurement data and deliver commercial services for SMEs powered by open data

We will continue working hard in order to provide you the best information services and that Euroalert keeps be considered a leading company in the emerging market for information-based services in the public sector, a company powered by OpenData. Thank you all for helping us getting there.

Euroalert will present 10ders Information Services at the workshop "Share-PSI.eu" within the framework of the European Digital Agenda

The first workshop, “Share-PSI”, will be held in Brussels on the 10-11 of May and is organized in the framework of the “Big Idea” of the European Digital Agenda. This event brings together different actors who are related to the reuse of public sector information (PSI) and who will discuss and contribute with ideas on how to re-use "open data" of public administration. Among them, they are representatives of civil society, media, government organizations, representatives of academia and companies like Euroalert.

On behalf of Euroalert.net, our director will participate at the workshop in the round table on the presentation of case studies which demonstrates the potential of “Open Data”, i.e. the reuse of public information. As a case study, José Luis Marin, will presents the position paper: "Euroalert.net: Building a pan-European platform to aggregate public procurement data and deliver commercial services for SMEs powered by open data”.

As you already might know, Euroalert create value from these "open data" offering the best content daily information about the European Union, such as calls for projects, news and EU legislation. Although in this occasion, it is our project 10ders Information Services, which is aimed to build a pan-European platform that will aggregate the big data about public procurement information generated by hundreds of thousands of contracting authorities in the EU, which leads us to Brussels along with other relevant actors in the European Open Data Community. You can also take a look to some of our services based in 10ders IS in the Euroalert store online, as well as the alerts systems on Government contracts for SMEs or the 10ders Reports.

If you have time, we recommend you to attend to this event because there will be presented many interesting ideas. Euroalert will participate on May 10 and we will try to keep you informed of everything that happens through our Twitter. We would also like to remind you that you can take the opportunity to meet us and if you wish some more information about our services you can always send us an e-mail. Of course, you will find in our blog a complete summary of what happened in this event afterwards. Thus, keep reading Euroalert's blog.

Euroalert.net meets International Trade at IMEX 2011

Among the activities our Team has prepared for this month, for whom we will give you some more details in the coming days, Euroalert.net will be on May 11th at the Madrid «Fair for International Business and Investment IMEX 2011», one more opportunity for us to meet institutions and businesses who develop their activity in the field of International Trade.

As you already know Euroalert.net has taken the challenge to build up the most complete pan-European platform aggregating information on all public contracts in the European Union which will help us to provide value services for SMEs. Our services and tools on EU Government contracts information are already being used by institutions and companies in many countries in order to improve their results in the public procurement sector outside their home countries, developing their export strategies and Internationalization Plans.

Among the institutions who already trust Euroalert.net to help their companies to export their products and services to foreign countries, there are organizations such as the Irish Trade and Technology Agency Enterprise Ireland, the London Chamber of Commerce or the Export or the International Promotion Agency for Spanish Madrid region PromoMadrid.

We are sure that this will be a perfect occasion for us to meet institutions and companies willing to improve their market intelligence focused in export activities thanks to Euroalert.net information products and services.

If you are in Madrid in May 11th and have the opportunity to stop in IMEX 2011, you can contact us either by e-mail or via Twitter as the Head of Euroalert.net International Department, Mai Rodriguez Entem, will be there all that day and will be pleased to meet you and chat about how Euroalert.net can help you to export.

IMEX 2011 will also run on May 12th, so if you are close to Madrid Municipal Conference Centre, don't forget: you have an appointment with International Trade!

Euroalert experience at the Open Data networking session at SICARM

SICARM 2011 event held in Murcia, closed last Friday with a session on Open Data: "The commercial reuse of public sector information: a new business opportunity for companies and funding opportunity for government against the crisis?”.

As we anticipated last week, Euroalert participated in this session, explaining its experience regarding reusing data administrations, both good and bad, and also showing some examples of the services Euroalert provide to companies and organizations throughout Europe.

We had a very interesting morning because we all learned many things about different aspects involved in the reuse of public sector information. Jose Manuel Alonso from CTIC Foundation, and professors Emilio Guichot Reina and Manuel Fernández Salmerón provided interesting information from the different angles of their respective areas of expertise. In order to know of what we are talking about, you can have a look to the Euroalert presentation paper, as well as CTIC Foundation presentation which explains the current state of play with regard to Open Data and the roundtable on the videos posted on the SICARM website.

Information Services Based on Reuse of Public Sector Information

Also, you can find more details regarding this event on the Jose L. Marín blog. We want to thank to everyone who came to the University of Murcia for its presence and to those who followed it through the Internet or Twitter.

Euroalert will participate in “SICARM 2011” event at Murcia Region

Euroalert.net keeps participating on events in which we can share experiences and learning to improve and to offer a better service. This week, we will travel to Murcia (Spain). There, it takes place the “XI Foro Anual Sociedad Información” «Information Society XI Annual Forum» and our director, José Luis Marín, will be one of the speakers in one of the panels in which he will describe how Euroalert uses opendata to offer more and better commercial intelligence services to companies from all over Europe adding an extra value to the information from the public sector.

«Information Society XI Annual Forum» has as its theme this year «The legal challenges of technological innovation in public administration». These workshops aim to "explore the legal implications of process innovation and openness that is demanded to the Public Administration by the society, so that satisfactorily meet the constitutional mandate to serve the general interest in accordance with the requirements and possibilities that technology offers to give effect to the principles of effectiveness, efficiency and participation because it has not yet been raised in an open debate about the enormous possibilities of modernization and, above all, innovation enabling tools available today".

There will also be in SICARM 2011, other great speakers, experts in the reuse of public sector information, as are many of the players in the Open Data community in Spain. These are some of the participants in this Forum, which we will have the honor to share the event:

• Fernando de Pablo, General Director for the Promotion of Electronic Administration of the Ministry of the Presidency. he called his speech: "Is it possible a new model of public administration based on innovation and technology?"
• Lorenzo Cotino Hueso, Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Valencia and Coordinator for ICT Network Law. His presentation will focus on "Legal and institutional problems of the Open Government".
• José Manuel Alonso, from the CTIC Foundation who will speak on "The reuse of the public information in Spain: current status and future prospects" and that will be in our same workshop.

In addition, there will be many other speakers that may be of interest for your activities so we recommend you to review the complete program of SICARM 2011.

If you are interested in learning more about this topic and you are in Murcia between 13 and 15 April, you can still register using this form. Moreover, registration is free. In concrete, presentations and workshops will be held in the Auditorium and Congress Centre of Murcia, 13 and 14 April and 15 April at the University of Murcia, Campus La Merced. Euroalert will participate on April 15 so if you want to meet us in person or more details on any of Euroalert's services do not hesitate to send us a mail or send us a DM via Twitter. See you there!

Euroalert.net lends an Ear to Europe!

Over the past nearly 4 years, Euroalert.net Official Blog has been one of the channels where we have been telling you all the news and developments related to our business and services, which go beyond the daily track of EU news and activities. It has also been the way for you to give us your feedback about these changes, which has been indeed of quite a help for us. It is easy to follow Euroalert.net's evolution over this time in its Blog, as it has been the channel to announce new features in our services – widgets, public procurement and government contracts alerting services, on-line store, etc.; the launch of new sections with more contents in our web – such as EU Law, or commercial opportunities and public procurement in multilateral organizations, etc.; Euroalert.net's mentions in the press, or Euroalert.net's participation in open data events where we have been contributing with our experiences in re-using public sector information.

However, no announcement has made us more excited as the one we are bringing you today: Macarena Rodríguez, from La Oreja de Europa, will join us as new Euroalert.net Editor in Chief from 1 April!

As Macarena needs no introduction among all followers of European Union matters, let us just tell you that she is coming with a bag full of new projects and new energy to bring you every day all the most relevant contents about the day-to-day activity of the European Union and its institutions.

We are sure that her contribution to Euroalert.net's Team will make it an even more useful site for all of you, and will also allow us to move faster in our goal to build the first pan-European platform to aggregate public procurement and tenders from the 27 Member States in the European Union.

La Oreja de Europa ("Europe's Ear") will of course keep on listening to Europe, and will not disappear or be part of Euroalert.net corporation. It will remain a personal project run by Macarena Rodríguez, who will keep on devoting as much effort as before to create a space for reflection and opinion on EU issues. Euroalert.net, will of course be very happy it remains so.

Welcome to Euroalert.net Team, Macarena!

Euroalert.net has a brand new look!

Throughout the last weekend we have been publishing the new versions of the different websites which make Euroalert.net. The main change you will perceive is the new look of all sections of Euroalert.net, whose main objective is to improve the overall clarity in the presentation of these contents.

We really hope you will like these changes but, above all, what we really hope to have achieved is our goal to improve the presentation and allow you to better read the contents on the most relevant news about the European Union that we publish every day. As always, your feedback is very much appreciated, so send us all your comments and opinions through Euroalert.net twitter channel!

A few weeks ago we already announced the launch of a new Public procurement alerting service, a service that you can also try and test for your business thanks to the 7-day free trial you can get by registering in Euroalert.net website. This alerting system is one of the services that will make up the wide range of products and services Euroalert.net will be launching during 2011 as part or its strategy to become the first pan-European platform to aggregate all public tenders and public procurement contracts in the European Union.

Following this same trend to create business services based on public sector information, Euroalert.net has also launched over the last months the service to provide customized newsletters on European information, as well as the new section on European Union legislation, where for the moment you will find the legal provisions published in the L Series of the OJEU, but that will be expanded very soon.

In the coming weeks you will be noticing more changes as more new features will be added in order to improve the content we offer you every day as well as the services we provide based on this information. But, before anything else, we will be making the announcement you are all waiting for, the name of the person who will be the new Euroalert.net Chief Editor from 1 April...

Come and take a 7-day FREE TRIAL for Euroalert.net 10ders Alerts

In our first post of this year we already mentioned you a new product we had included in Euroalert.net's on-line Store to close the year on a high note: the Alerts on public procurement contracts from all EU countries which we called 10ders Alerts. To make a good start of this new year, Euroalert.net offers you the possibility to enjoy a 7 days free trial by only making a very simple registration and to setting up your profile. During 7 days you will receive in your e-mail public procurement announcements marching your business needs.

As it has been the case for all 10ders products, we have created 10ders Alerts thinking very specially about what SMEs from all over Europe actually need and which are their difficulties in accessing public procurement market. For that reason, our main purpose was to create a service very easy to use, which can be bought at a very competitive price (only 20€/month or 192€/year), but, above all, a service including all the new features we have developed to enhance search power and filtering so you will only receive public contracts, procurement announcements and awards which are relevant for your business.


You are welcome to try it for FREE and give us your opinion, which will certainly help us to improve the product for all Euroalert.net Community. As always, for any question, just don't hesitate to contact us, you can do so in our e-mail TenderAlerts@euroalert.net.

Just like the 10ders Product Reports in public procurement, that you can also buy in Euroalert.net on-line store, this is one more excellent tool for exporting SMEs. Using 10ders Alerts they will be able to explore new business opportunities with the Public Sector in different countries, or to improve their commercial market intelligence and know what their competitors are doing, find new partners or distributors, or knowing whether their product is competitive outside their country.

10ders Alerts is the first of a series of important announcements we will be making in the coming weeks, and is one more step in our goal to build a pan-European platform which will aggregate all public procurement and tender announcements in the European Union (which represent more that 2155 billion euro!).

As we progress in this objective, we will be able to develop new cost-effective information services which will be accessible for any SME and will help them to be more competitive in public procurement markets.

For example, very soon we will be announcing you something we are really looking forward to making public: the entry of a new member of Euroalert.net Team, who will take the position as Editor in Chief and will therefore be in charge of offering you an even better selection of the most relevant news from the European Union and its institutions.

First (tender) announcement of the year... in Euroalert.net

2010 has been such a busy year for Euroalert.net that we didn't even realize to wish you all a Merry Christmas or to publish the traditional end-of-the-year post listing all the achievements and highlights of the last twelve months... Those of you who also follow Euroalert.net Twitter account of joined our Facebook page have already received our Christmas greetings, but for all who don't here the best wishes for year 2011 from all the Team who makes Euroalert.net, we hope it will be a year full of good projects and new opportunities for all of you.

The truth is that this year, in addition to Euroalert.net's usual activity which brings you every day all the information on EU News, funding opportunities and EU grants as well as government contracts and public procurement in the Union, we have started offering a daily update on the legislation published by the Official Journal of the European Union, and we have also inaugurated the new Euroalert.net on-line store.

But 2010 has been above all THE year for Open Data, a year which brought us the occasion to take part in all the events for open data community we managed to attend, even opening some of the data related to public procurement which are managed by Euroalert.net and releasing them in our project ShowMeTheTenders.net; a year in which we were also honoured to be one of the cases of PSI reuse to be mentioned by some of the most relevant Spanish media such as El País, Expansión or Cinco Días. This year Euroalert.net also contributed to Commission's public consultation on PSI Directive, as well as the consultation launched by the Spanish Ministry of Industry on the PSI-reuse Royal Decree. We are sure that all these common efforts will lead to a more favourable Open Data legislation quite soon.

This is not going to be a the detailed count of all 2010 achievements, not at all..., but just as an example of Euroalert.net activity over the past months, on 30 December - almost closing up the year, we launched the new tailored alerting service on public procurement 10ders Alerts - more details will follow in another post. This new service, together with some more in the pipeline, will complete over 2011 the most comprehensive tool kit of information services to help SMEs to access public procurement and government contracts.

In some countries there used to be some sort of traditional expectation about which would be the first TV commercial of the new year... as a “tender version” of such tradition, here comes the first announcement - tender announcement of course..., of year 2011: those interested in multilateral tendering, at your marks, first announcement of year 2011 is a EuropeAid forecast for a contract to provide support to the Kosovo Judicial/ Prosecutorial Council under funded an IPA instrument.

Happy 2011 to every one and good luck to all those bidding this year!!!