Willem Janssen on European public procurement rules: ‘Add sustainability and security as explicit focus’

On 30 May, the European Commission Government Experts Group on Public Procurement met to discuss the topic ‘Future priorities and developments of public procurement’. Willem Janssen, together with Prof Tunde Tatrai (Corvinus University Budapest), had been invited to give his views and what should be the main focus for European procurement rules. One of his recommendations is to partially let go of the current, strong focus on non-discrimination (creating a level playing field for contractors) and give the criteria ‘sustainability’ and ‘security’ a more important role in the procurement process. 

The reason for the meeting was last year's critical report by the European Court of Auditors (Public procurement in the EU, European Court of Auditors) and the recent ‘Letta Report’ (Much more than a market, Enrico Letta) in which, among other things, the future-proofness of European procurement law was questioned. 

Building blocks for better public procurement

In his presentation, Willem Janssen drew attention to five elements, which he says are crucial for the future development of European public procurement processes and rules:  

• Public organisations must, down to board level, have well-trained, preferably certified, procurement professionals with excellent feelers with excellent knowledge of the market, and of legal possibilities and constraints. Given the scale of public procurement (totalling 14 to 19 per cent of EU GDP), there lies a huge opportunity here to positively influence efficiency, climate change and social justice.
• Clarify the objectives of European procurement law: let go (partly) of the strong focus on non-discrimination, explicitly add the criteria of sustainability and security, and incorporate this into public procurement rules.
• Ensure coherent procurement rules: create sectoral rules based on the new (Green Deal) requirements, but keep the public procurement directives procedural. Accordingly, make green and social procurement mandatory by setting minimum requirements within sectoral legislation.
• Procurement procedures should offer more room for green and social outcomes, for instance by allowing more negotiation in a procedure, and increasing the opportunities for green and social procurement (think of CSR criteria, and limiting a tender to local, regional or national level).
• Better enforcement of procurement rules is needed, as it is currently inadequate or too complex in many member states. Therefore, establish a single enforcement authority within each EU member state and collect better data.

See the link below for the presentation slides: