EP uses essentially a two-stage competitive procurement process to select its preferred bidder. For each procure- ment, EP typically engages roughly 20 staff members along with complementary financial and technical advisors. In the first stage, an advertisement for bids is placed in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU), generally for 2 months. Bids are then presented by interested parties and evaluated. Bids are typically evaluated on several weighted criteria:
♦ Technical quality
♦ Government's contributions to project:
- Net present value (NPV) of government payments (shadow toll situation)
- Subsidies requested
♦ Risk allocation and management plan
♦ Proposed date of facility opening and full operation
♦ Robustness of financial and legal structure
Following evaluation, two respondents are short-listed, and this process generally lasts 3 months. In the second stage, EP enters into negotiations with the two remaining teams and ultimately selects its preferred bidder (another 2 months). A contract award is then made (1 month). Financial close occurs after contract award (another 2 months). In total, the process is completed in roughly a year. EP makes all bids received in the first stage avail- able to all respondents for 10 days, and it also makes the final two bids received after negotiations in the second stage available to all respondents for 10 days. This practice helps facilitate the transparency of the process among all respondents.