How far can SME friendly policies go in public procurement?
I co-authored a blogpost with Albert published on Almacen de Derecho about a proposed policy by Ciudadanos to support innovative SMEs in Spain. Here's an excerpt:
Ciudadanos, one of Spain’s recently emerged nation-wide political parties, recently submitted a non-legislative proposal to the Spanish Parliament with the aim of reserving 3% of public contracts tendered in Spain to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) that are ‘legally certified’ as innovative. The aim of their proposal is to develop and apply research & development and innovation (R&D&I) projects for the provision of public services. Ciudadanos is also proposing for the innovation of solutions to be evaluated in all public tenders, that contracting authorities differentiate the award of contracts concerning ‘high technological value’ solutions, and that contracting authorities retain the possibility of mandating the subcontracting of specific parts of the tendered contracts to ‘innovative SMEs’.
Many thanks to Jesus Alfaro for the kind invitation/prodding to write the post. Here's the Spanish version if you're so inclined.