Strong PPRC presence at Global Revolution

On 17-18 June, the conference Public Procurement: Global Revolution IX, the biennial conference on public procurement law at Nottingham University (UK), took place with a strong representation of PPRC researchers. Over 400 academics, policy-makers, judges, lawyers and other professionals in the field of public procurement from all over the world gathered to discuss public procurement and the law. PPRC researchers prof. Elisabetta Manunza, Nathan Meershoek LLM, ir. Niels Uenk and dr. Willem Janssen presented their current research at the conference.

'Public procurement of social care: from competitive contracting to ex post competition'

Niels Uenk presented PPRC research (a paper written by Madelon Wind, Jan Telgen and himself) in the workshop on social care procurement. It is titled ‘Public procurement of social care: from competitive contracting to ex post competition'. The paper addresses the municipal commissioning of 12 different types of social care services (from home care for the elderly to juvenile rehabilitation services) by all 380 Dutch municipalities in 2018. In the empirical study 4.138 contracts were analysed on a wide range of aspects. They found municipalities used open contracting schemes (‘open house’) in almost 90% of all contracts, and about half of the municipalities use dialogue-based procurement procedures. Other presenters in his workshop were dr. Freiderike Mussgung and dr. Caroline Emberson.
 
Questioning the foundations of the internal market as potential impediment and the potential need to foster social entrepreneurship in public procurement
 
Elisabetta Manunza and Nathan Meershoek organized a panel on ‘New economic operators’ and presented their research on the legal tensions between promoting social entrepreneurship in public procurement and the foundations and legal principles of the EU internal market. The panel was chaired by prof. Chris Jansen (VU Amsterdam). Their panel is titled ‘Questioning the foundations of the internal market as potential impediment and the potential need to foster social entrepreneurship in public procurement’. In their paper, Manunza and Meershoek evaluated the room for stimulating social entrepreneurship within the boundaries of EU public procurement law. During the workshop, Manunza first addressed the wide room for manoeuvre of contracting authorities and the conflicting goals and legal principles for ‘social commissioning’ in public procurement.  Subsequently, Meershoek discussed the potential impediments for stimulating social entrepreneurship relating to the EU-law concept of ‘economic operator’. The implication of this concept is the obligation of contracting authorities to adhere to the principle of equal treatment. The potential impact of justification-grounds and exceptions to this principle was deemed limited for stimulating social entrepreneurship. The common conclusion was that for improving ‘social commissioning’ more guidance and choices by the legislator are needed.

Swimming against the Tide: the Harmonisation of Self-organisation through article 12 Directives 2014/24/EU

Willem Janssen organised a panel on ‘in-house and public-public cooperation’ and presented his paper that delves into the discretionary power of national legislatures to implement additional or altered criteria in light of article 12 Directive 2014/24/EU (i.e. the institutionalised and non-institutionalised exemptions). It is titled ‘Swimming against the Tide: the Harmonisation of Self-organisation through article 12 Directives 2014/24/EU’. Sparked by the Finnish, Lithuanian, Italian, and Polish implementations of this provision, it creates a stomping-ground for broader discussions on self-organisation within EU public procurement law. In light of the Lithuanian case-law that has been brought before the CJEU (Irgita case, pending), it discusses what type of harmonisation was used for this provision, if these implementations are, thus, valid in light of EU law, and what this means for the influence of EU public procurement law on the organisation of public tasks on the Member State level. Other presenters in his panel were dr. Carri Ginter, dr. Livio Girenti and Erik Olsson.