Because of Prof Carina Risvig Hamer, I had the chance to take part within the convention ‘EU Public Procurement anno 2025 – Are the principles match for function?’ on the College of Copenhagen.
This was an attention-grabbing couple of days with a lot meals for thought — but additionally worryingly harking back to discussions already had again in 2011 through the earlier spherical of overview of the EU directives (plus ça change).
I believe there was a good quantity of help within the room for the place that the problems with the (in)effectiveness of EU procurement regulation don’t stem from the rulebook, however reasonably from challenges in implementation and organisational and capability shortcomings. Nevertheless, this didn’t pre-empt discussions on how the rulebook may very well be improved.
My matter was, maybe unsurprisingly, the necessity to simplify the goals and targets of competitors regulation (my presentation is obtainable right here). This gave me a possibility to revisit the (outdated and newer) arguments for stripping procurement of regulatory gatekeeping capabilities by offloading market-shaping guidelines and norms to basic laws, not procurement-specific necessary necessities (eg on sustainability, see additionally Halonen (2021)).
In brief, my conclusions / details have been that, in relation to the growing use of procurement as a coverage supply device:
Simplification can solely be achieved in a pro-competitive method if the regulatory burden is positioned elsewhere (EU-level laws relevant throughout the financial system)
Explicitly altering purpose/s and rules is prone to solely have a marginal impact
Solely funding in capability and growth of energetic market intelligence methods can begin to make a distinction in apply
