The European Commission put out last week a non-paper on the interpretation and application of the Kolin and Qingdao cases for economic operators coming from third countries. This is a fairly cautious document and probably the most the Commission can do at the moment and in this Q&A
Earlier this week the Commission put out a summary of the findings on the public procurement consultation for the revision of the procurement Directives. Albert has a great entry on the findings of the consultation but I will be taking a different view on this one. In total the consultation
PAN (Greens/EFA) Of all parties represented in the Portuguese Parliament, PAN is the smallest and the only party with a proper, thoughtful set of proposals for public procurement. For the most part they are detailed and up to the point. It is a shame the other parties have not
Livre (Greens/European Free Alliance) Back in 2024, Livre had one of the most compelling set of policy proposals for public procurement. Thorough and detailed, unlike those from the larger parties. For the upcoming general election, however, Livre has decided not to add any new ideas for public procurement opting
A couple of days ago I was contacted by Joren Vuylsteke, a PhD candidate at KU Leuven. He was wondering what had happened with the Portuguese train tender that garnered so much attention a couple of years ago. Regarding that one, well, nothing has happened. We still do not have
Iniciativa Liberal (ALDE): When it comes down to public procurement, the liberal party is the only one arguing for a root and branch reform of the Public Contracts Code. They correctly point out the salami slicing of accountability and guard rail features that were included in the legislation and were
Chega (ID) The far right party manifesto has a few policy proposals for public procurement, mostly the same as last year. Its main novelty here is the protection of national industry against unfair competition and using public procurement to support national companies. How? By privileging them when tendering. As far
PS (Socialists) Looking into this year\s Socialist Party manifesto was a fun exercise for someone living in the UK. It is very easy to gauge what was the inspiration for their approach of having five strategic missions. It comes straight from Labour's 2024 manifesto and the comparisons
Like (just) last year, I am once again going to look at the party manifestos of the various parties running in the Portuguese General Election to be held in a couple of weeks. The focus of this analysis is exclusive to their proposals for public procurement - a hot topic
It was yesterday on the news that the US federal government via its embassies requested EU companies to confirm that they do not have DEI policies in place. The details are sketchy but they seem to have targeted at least French companies and in particular companies who have or are
On this final entry based on my response to the public consultation on the revision of the procurement Directives I focus instead on what should not change and is worth keeping as it is. 44. While tempting to focus on change in the context of the public consultation for a
On this seventh entry I covered the idea that was floated back in the original draft for the 2014 procurement Directive of the creation of a single oversight body in each member State. I remember hearing some arguments about why that was dropped but honestly the details evade me at