Aiming to provide public authorities and their suppliers with more effective and flexible instruments to make contract awards more transparent and competitive processes, the European Commission has launched a public consultation seeking for interested parties opinions. This public debate, which will open until 18 April 2011, will focus on the modernisation of the rules, the tools and methods for public procurement to deliver better on these goals.

As put forward by the Europe 2020 strategy for sustainable growth, public procurement plays a key role in promoting its objectives as one of the market-based instruments that should be used to achieve them. More specifically, the Europe 2020 strategy calls on public procurement to improve framework conditions for business to innovate, to support the shift towards a resource efficient and low-carbon economy, as well as to improve the business environment, especially for innovative SMEs.

Ensuring the most efficient possible use of public resources, in an environment where public procurement already accounts for up to 17% of the EU’s GDP, has become not only an objective but rather a necessity in a time market by austerity. For that reason, many stakeholders have voiced demands for a review of the EU public procurement system to increase its efficiency and effectiveness.

Taking more SMEs which now are estimated to secure between 31% and 38% in terms of total contract value of public procurement, to get access to more public contracts which are daily published in the EU, represents one of the main challenges for the Commission in this revision. In addition to this objective procurers also need simple and flexible procedures allowing them to contribute effectively to the achievement of the common objectives of the Europe 2020 strategy.

Boosting cross-border procurement and making public contracts more accessible for SMEs

Clarifying public procurement rules to make life easier for both public authorities and companies bidding for contracts in Europe is therefore a key objective for the Commission. Granting access of smaller companies to procurement markets, reducing red tape, or promoting European cross-border procurement will be some of the key issues during the consultation. Furthermore, the consultation addresses aspects such as how can public authorities promote innovation through public procurement, or to what extent establishing obligations to buy only products respecting certain environmental conditions are to be taken into account, or the need for customised rules for the procurement of social services of general economic interest.

The consultation also requests the opinion on stricter rules or better safeguards to prevent favouritism, corruption or conflicts of interest, as well as the best way to guarantee efficient competition in procurement markets.

In parallel with the current Green Paper and the Consultation on the modernisation of EU public procurement policy, the European Commission is undertaking a comprehensive evaluation of the impact and cost-effectiveness of EU public procurement policy. The results of the evaluation, together with contributions from stakeholders to this Green Paper will feed the reflection on the future reform of the EU public procurement rules, which will lead to a proposal for legislative reform.