Debate: The role of social award criteria in public procurement in strengthening social rights, good working conditions and inclusive labour markets
Date: MONDAY, 15 JANUARY 2024
Speaker: Dragoş Pîslaru
Country: Spain
Language: EN

However, evidence shows that public authorities face legal challenges and uncertainty when trying to apply mandatory social award criteria and sustainable award criteria. The European Parliament Committee of Employment and Social Affairs has analysed rigorously this matter. In 2023, the Employment and Social Affairs Committee commissioned a study – DG IPOL has delivered the study – with the key findings of where we are. What is the status quo? On 25 October last year, we held a public hearing on the social impact of public procurement. Both activities pointed out the same issue: legal challenges and uncertainty. If we are to look at the dimension of public procurement in Europe, the source of wealth, the source that we can actually put together there for improving our markets is enormous – we are talking more than EUR 500 billion. Experts, representatives of local municipal authorities and of the social partners, stressed, in the hearing that we had, that the role of public procurement should be key in strengthening collective bargaining and social progress in the EU, and they pointed out the legal uncertainties of the current EU legislative framework on public procurement. Solutions that have been discussed in the Employment and Social Affairs Committee with our colleagues involved, first of all, revising the Public Procurement Directive so that there is an explicit push by public authorities to have no public contract without a collective agreement, clarifying that the promotion of collective bargaining with binding labour clauses does not violate EU law – and we had a big debate on that – revising the Public Procurement Directive to include mandatory social criteria, such as collective agreements, among others. It is therefore clear that the potential of socially responsible public procurement remains largely unexploited, and that the current voluntary approach is not sufficient, and that further work at EU level is necessary. Therefore, dear Commissioner Schmit, the questions to start this debate are the following. First of all, will the Commission consider revising the Directive to ensure legal certainty; in particular, to ensure that collective agreements and social criteria are not considered a discriminatory measure in public contracts? Second, will the Commission consider revising the Annex 10 of the Public Procurement Directive in order to update the ILO Conventions listed, especially with regard to ILO Convention 94? Furthermore, will the Commission take the necessary measure to ensure that the non-respect for fundamental ILO Conventions 98 and 87 become an exclusion criteria in the context of public procurement? The fourth question is: will the Commission promote joint and several liability in subcontracting chains? Fifth, will the Commission ensure social conditionalities in Union funding related to public procurement? This is very important. We should start negotiating the next multiannual financial framework soon, and we need to look at that. Six, will the Commission ensure that the public procurement plays a role in promoting upskilling and reskilling of workers, especially in the view of the new technologies arising from the green and digital transition? Seven, last but not least, will the Commission strengthen data collection on the volume and the value of socially responsible public procurement, as well as the exchange of knowledge and best practices in the EU? Together with my colleagues in the Employment and Social Affairs Committee, and based both on the research that we’ve done, and the hearing that we had with experts and representatives of local authorities and stakeholders, social partners, we believe that tapping on this important resource, on public procurement and providing social work criteria, is just the right step towards a social Europe, towards the model that we would like to build together. For that we need, again, the cooperation of all the institutions. The Parliament has initiated right now the process of this particular debate, and we are waiting and looking forward for how to push forward for this to happen.