Report on the EPSU/ETUC Public Procurement Meeting "Socially Responsible Procurement"

Brief report of ETUC/EPSU workshop on
Public Procurement, 21 May 2015

Introduction

Mads Samsing, Chair of EPSU Standing Committee for Local and Regional Government opened the workshops and welcomed all participants. He introduced the objectives of the workshop, which were to see how to make the most use of the new Public Procurement Directives in respecting the following:
- ensure respect for employment legislation and collective agreements conditions in public contracts (mandatory social clause)
- encourage a greater take up by public authorities of the new possibilities to include social and environmental criteria in procurement tenders
- take advantage of the clarification in the Directives on the right to ‘in-house’ / public-public cooperation to question the outsourcing of public services to private operators
- avoid potential problems regarding the specific regime for health social services
- raise awareness / campaign at the different levels, and consider what materials would be useful.
The new Directives adopted in 2014 are a substantial improvement over the previous Directives, which privileged lowest-cost tenders and made it difficult to include social criteria ‘upfront’ (Read more).