The Diplomat
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is currently open to tender for a cooperation contract with an external company to process visas for those wishing to travel to Spain, given that the one signed in 2016 with a firm expires next May.
Specifically, according to the tender published by the Undersecretariat of Foreign Affairs, what is being sought is “cooperation with an external service provider for the collection and processing of visa applications”.
This cooperation includes “information services, data collection and applications (including biometric identifiers and digitalisation of documents), collection of fees, management of appointments for interviews, referral of applications to the consular office and return of travel documents to applicants”, as explained in the file published on the Public Sector Procurement Platform, to which Europa Press had access.
Foreign Affairs puts the estimated value of the contract, which will last for three years, at 112.35 million euros. The tender was published at the end of October and the deadline ends on 28 January, after being suspended for a few days in December after the Central Administrative Tribunal for Contractual Resources adopted provisional measures in relation to appeals that have already been rectified.
The government is thus maintaining its commitment to outsourcing this procedure, which is key to managing the arrival in Spain of those who wish to travel for work, study or other reasons and need a visa to do so.
As explained by the Executive in a recent parliamentary response to three senators from Ciudadanos, to which Europa Press has had access, the contract signed with the company BLS International Limited Services on 12 December 2016 ends in May this year.
In their question, Miguel Sánchez, José Luis Muñoz and María Ponce questioned the process of awarding the contract, which resulted in “a concession in which the Government prioritised economic criteria over quality conditions in the tender documents”.
As a result, the Cs senators argued, “there are indications that visa applicants who could have chosen our country as a destination have preferred not to do so, applying instead for visas from neighbouring countries such as France or Germany, due to the fact that the application procedure managed by this company did not have the appropriate levels of quality”.
Given that Spain is an attractive destination for citizens from all over the world, said the orange party, “it is vital that we have a streamlined, efficient and secure visa system that avoids subjecting those who want to come to our country to unbearable bureaucratic procedures”.
For this reason, they demanded that the new tender “establishes demanding standards of quality, security of the data provided by applicants, efficiency and sustainability in the procedures”, as well as requesting data on the results of the current company awarded the contract.
According to Foreign Affairs, the number of visas processed through this company since December 2016 “increased year after year until the start of the pandemic”. Thus, in 2017 BLS collected 1,456,865 visa applications, which represented 90.09 per cent of the short-stay visa applications processed by Spain globally that year.
In 2018, the figure rose to 1,528,838 visa applications, 89.38 per cent of short-stay visa applications processed that year, and in 2019 the figure was 1,721,112 applications, 90.18 per cent. “The figures for 2020 and 2021 have been reduced by the effect of the pandemic and existing travel restrictions,” acknowledges the foreign ministry.
As for the criteria that will govern the new tender, which the Cs senators had been interested in, the department headed by José Manuel Albares clarifies that in the evaluation the economic offer will weigh 40 percent and the technical offer 60 percent.
Foreign Affairs also explains that, in accordance with the Law on public sector contracts, “it is expected to invite a minimum of five companies to participate in the process, in accordance with the requirements of technical and financial solvency established in the specifications, ensuring the existence of a minimum and necessary competition in the procedure”.
