Public procurement and public services in the EU

Abstract

Introduction The regulation of public procurement has been an instrumental component of the EU Common Market, as it has provided a platform for economic, legal and policy justifications in order to eliminate non-tariff barriers. Public procurement in the EU has been significantly influenced by the White Paper for the Completion of the Internal Market and the Single European Act. Furthermore, law and policy have been shaped by reference to the 1996 European Commission's Green Paper on Public Procurement and the subsequent 1998 Commission Communication. Public procurement regulation became an integral part of the Commission's 2000 Work Programme, which pledged to modernize the relevant legislation for the completion of the Internal Market and at the same time implement the Lisbon European Council's call for economic reform within the Internal Market. The intellectual paternity of public procurement regulation can be traced in a neo-classical economic approach to market integration.6 Public procurement has been identified as a serious non-tariff barrier and a hindrance to the functioning of a genuinely competitive Common Market. Its regulation, apart from seeking an endorsement of the acquis communautaire by Member States of the fundamental principles of the Common Market, aims primarily at introducing radical changes in the industrial base of the European Union. Integration of public markets, through the principles of transparency, non-discrimination and objectivity in the award of public contracts, will bring substantial savings to the public sector, rationalize and allocate more efficiently human and capital resources and increase the productivity and competitiveness of European firms.