European Strategy for Public Procurement in the Construction Sector.

Given the importance of the public procurement in attaining our socio-economic and environmental goals, it is highly important that we outline an effective and context-sensitive strategy on how to improve public procurement in construction.

For this reason, relying on the input of 100+ participating stakeholders, our initiative focuses on:

  1. Mapping all the major challenges and find corresponding solutions,
  2. Organizing a discussion platform to analyze implementation strategies,
  3. Coordinating the implementation of needed changes through a series of roundtables, public debates, media campaigns and specialized trainings.

Our Partners

Key Highlights from the weTHINK. Annual Conference (16 DEC 2020)

The general introduction for the conference was provided by Ms. Anna Lupi, from DG Grow, Public procurement strategy unit. Detailing on the current state of EU public procurement policy Ms. Lupi also addressed the existing major challenges regarding social and environmental sustainability at the European but also regional levels. Her presentation detailed on the existing tools at the European level to support public buyers but also on the EU strategy regarding Covid-related recovery and possible coping mechanisms. More detailed info can be found in her presentation below.

Keynote

EU Public procurement policy – state of play

Anna Lupi, DG GROW, Public procurement Strategy unit

EU Public procurement policy – state of play

Anna Lupi, DG GROW, Public procurement Strategy unit
View Presentation

Further on, our discussion splitted in 4 different groups, relying on a presentation from our guests we detailed on:

Focus Topics

Focus Topic: Institutional Capacity in Public Procurement (Working Draft)

… refers to the challenges related to lack of enough training or manpower in the tendering/procurement agencies and details on how we can improve this situation.

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Focus Topic: Environmental Sustainability in Procurement (Working Draft)

… discusses lack of proper environmental criteria in procurement process and how this situation can be improved without putting too much pressure on participating companies.

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Focus Topic: Financial and Social Sustainability in Public Procurement (Working Draft)

… address the challenges related to project externalities, benefits it produces locally, social dumping practices and potential of the construction sector to aid the local development efforts.

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Standardization and Planning in Public Procurement (Working Draft)

… refers to the need to have transparent, balanced and modern procurement rules and guidelines to improve the process, diminish the tendering time and ensure quicker delivery of the projects.

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Focus Topic: Digitalization in Public Procurement (Working Draft)

… as the name suggests, details on what are the main barriers to full digitalization currently and what can be done to improve this.

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Goals and Overview

  • Tendering authorities
  • Chambers of Commerce and Engineering
  • Planning bureaus and engineering companies
  • Construction companies
  • Underwriting services
  • Ministries and governmental agencies
  • Building material companies
  • Financing institutions 
  • Political parties
  • Labour unions
  • EU actors
  • Media
  • Analysts, consultants and researchers
  • In a bottom up approach to strategy development, engaging companies, consultancies and chambers of commerce in the first stage and adding media, tendering and financing institutions and policy-makers to the debate at the second stage.
  • Establishing closed interactive groups on the weTHINK.eu online crowd knowledge platform to engage key actors in the discussion and offer an ongoing discussion platform for strategy and policy development.
  • Supporting the weTHINK.eu open platform to engage the whole society in the discussion.
  • Organizing online conferences and regular mapping calls with key stakeholders.
  • Continuously enlarging the network of engaged actors.

Goals

  • To improve the procurement systems in the construction sector in Europe and neighboring regions along the project‘s lifecycle from planning to procurement to impact
  • Identifying challenges in public procurement.
  • Developing a range of solutions to improve the system.
  • To facilitate cooperation and dialogue across the construction sector in order to make the European construction sector more competitive.

Impact

  • Public procurement accounts for approximately 14% of the EU‘s GDP (around €2 trillion per year) thus an efficient public procurement system can
    • Boost jobs, growth and investment, and create an economy that is more innovative, resource and energy efficient, and socially-inclusive.
    • Directly contribute to the implementation of pan European policy goals such as „The European Green Deal“ or „An EU industry fit for the future“.
    • Ensure that foreign subsidies do not distort European markets.
    • Make sure that implemented projects are the best fitted for our communities in terms of environmental, economic and social sustainability.