Posted on 24 March 2014
The private papers of David White deposited at the Historical Archives of the European Union in Florence are now available for consultation. The fonds is comprised of 49 files concerning White’s career in the European Commission where he occupied a number of posts. These have included responsibilities in employment policy and coordination of legislation on budgetary, internal market, environmental and transport policy matters. From 1985 to 1987 White was a member of President Delors’ Cabinet, where he was responsible for budgetary and parliamentary matters.
In 1987 he was appointed Head of the Public Procurement Policy Unit, a position he held until 1993. During his time as head, a major legislative programme was prepared and implemented, with a view to achieving a single market in public procurement in the European Community. Directives had been adopted covering the procurement of supplies, works and services by the public authorities and by the utilities operating in the telecommunications, energy, transport and water sectors, along with provisions to ensure that bidder’s rights would be respected. Furthermore, the Community rules were extended to the EFTA countries under the European Economic Area Agreement which came into force on the 1 January 1994.
In parallel with the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade agreements, negotiations were undertaken with a view to opening up procurement between Europe, North America and Japan in the framework of the GATT. White was heavily involved in the resolution of EC – US disagreements on the GATT – GPA (Government Procurement Agreement) and made a significant contribution to the completion of the Uruguay Round and the successful outcome of the negotiations for the new Government Procurement Agreement.
At this stage, White moved to coordination of technical legislation in DG III (Direction General for Industry) where his main input lay in dealing with barriers in the internal market, guidelines on regulatory policy, harmonisation of technical requirements and de-regulation. The fonds contains interesting papers on the cost of regulation and the debate on whether the EU would regulate too much.
Last but not least are 17 notebooks containing the handwritten notes which David White made of meetings during the period when he was Director of Enterprise Policy (2002 – 2005), Director of Innovation Policy (2005 – 2006) and Director of Education Policy (2007 – 2008) at the Commission.
Access the David White archival fonds