Service Concessions. Directive 2014/23 on the Award of Concession Contracts. A Comparative Study of its Transposition into Norwegian Law

Abstract

In this chapter we analyze the transposition of the Directive 2014/23 on the Award of Concession Contracts (“the Directive”) into Norwegian law. Norway is a different case compared with the rest of contributions part of this book because it is not an EU member. The Directive has become part of the Norwegian legal regime because it is a legal instrument with relevance for the European Economic Area which is, in turn, regulated by the Agreement on the European Economic Area. This particularity has an impact on how and when the Directive has been incorporated into Norwegian law and that, if it would have been the case that Norway had failed to implement the Directive on time in accordance to EEA law, it would not have had any direct effect. Despite Norway’s EEA membership and the particularities regarding the Directive’s implementation, our contribution shows that the Directive’s transposition into national law has largely been kept very similar to the original text of the Directive. In other words, the Norwegian rules on concession contracts basically reproduce the content with some adaptations to Norwegian legal traditions and acts, but without any major developments. This lack of ‘creativity’ regarding the regulation of concession contracts appears to derive from the fact that since this is a new instrument that also regulates concessions contract as a whole for the first time in Norway, the Norwegian legislator preferred to keep regulation to a minimum and grant contracting authorities and contracting entities the largest degree of discretion when awarding these contracts. Our contribution analyzes the incorporation of the Directive into Norwegian law and its content.