Reghub Implementation Report on Public Procurement
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Network of Regional Hubs CdR_4144/08-2019/EN for EU Policy Implementation Review Implementation Report First Consultation on Public Procurement ReRegHubgHub Created in 1994 following the signing of the Maastricht Treaty, the European Committee of the Regions is the EU’s assembly of 350 regional and local representatives from all 28 Member States, representing over 507 million Europeans. Its mission is to involve regional and local authorities and the communities they represent in the EU’s decision-making process and to inform them about EU policies. The European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council are obliged to consult the Committee in policy areas affecting regions and cities. It can appeal to the Court of Justice of the European Union if its rights are infringed or it believes that EU law infringes the subsidiarity principle or fails to respect regional or local powers. Rue Belliard/Belliardstraat 101 | 1040 Bruxelles/Brussel | BELGIQUE/BELGIË | Tel. +32 22822211 www.cor.europa.eu | @EU_CoR | /european.committee.of.the.regions | /european-committee-of-the-regions The content of this report has been approved by the European Committee of the Region's Subsidiarity Steering Group on 17 July 2019. More information on the Subsidiarity Steering Group is available on https://portal.cor.europa.eu/subsidiarity/news/Pages/New-SMN-Coordinator-and-Subsidiarity- Steering-Group.aspx Table of contents Foreword ......................................................................................................................................... 1 Executive summary – key findings ................................................................................................. 5 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 9 3.1 Why does this report matter? ................................................................................................... 9 3.2 How did this report come about?............................................................................................. 9 3.3 Why an implementation report on public procurement? ....................................................... 11 Key dimensions of the Directives .................................................................................................. 13 4.1 The new light-touch regime for social and health services ................................................... 13 4.2 New provisions intended to reduce red tape for SMEs (turnover cap, "divide or explain" principle) ........................................................................................................................................... 15 4.3 Higher thresholds .................................................................................................................. 19 4.4 The most economically advantageous tender approach (MEAT) ......................................... 21 4.5 Criterion used most often for the award of contracts ............................................................ 24 4.6 Procedures used ..................................................................................................................... 27 4.7 A more flexible competitive negotiated procedure ............................................................... 28 4.8 Electronic procurement ......................................................................................................... 30 4.9 Stronger provisions on integrity and transparency targeting corruption and fraud ............... 34 4.10 Scope extended to cover the modification/termination of contracts ..................................... 37 Strategic procurement .................................................................................................................... 41 5.1 Innovation procurement......................................................................................................... 45 5.2 Social procurement criteria.................................................................................................... 48 5.3 Green procurement criteria (GPP) ......................................................................................... 50 Cross-border purchasing ................................................................................................................ 53 Implementation issues ................................................................................................................... 57 7.1 The main sources of misapplication or legal uncertainty under the new rules ...................... 57 7.2 LRAs adjusting systems and procedures to the new rules ..................................................... 64 7.3 Measures to improve the implementation of the Directives and make the rules simpler for local and regional authorities ..................................................................................................................... 66 Multilevel governance issues ........................................................................................................ 71 8.1 Involvement of LRAs in the Member States' reporting to the Commission.......................... 71 8.2 National and European framework for public procurement .................................................. 72 Conclusions ................................................................................................................................... 75 Annexes ..................................................................................................................................... 81 Foreword On 15 March 2019, I had the pleasure of officially launching the network of regional hubs for EU policy implementation review in Bucharest at the 8th Summit of European regions and cities. Back then, I said that we wanted to ensure that this network would not become just another EU talk shop. Today, with this very first implementation report, we can prove that it is not. The CoR can be proud of having set up this bold project from scratch at the end of last year and being able to present the first results today. This is the first tangible outcome of the Task Force on subsidiarity, proportionality and doing less more efficiently, to which the CoR contributed last year. At the end of last year, more than 80 regions applied for membership of the network and the 36 hubs selected now participate actively in its work. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of them for their interest in and commitment to this flagship CoR project. Thanks to them, we finally have a tool to efficiently feed local and regional experience of technical implementation back into the policy making of the EU's institutions. Our goal is for this tool to become an integral part of the next European Commission's strategy on better regulation. This would be a true recognition of the importance of implementation experience of EU policies at all levels of government and of feeding back that implementation experience into the EU policy cycle. The success of the application process has allowed us to create a solid network of contact points. Only through their hard work was it possible to gather the important feedback on the implementation of the EU's public procurement policy, which you will find in this report. As you can see, our contact points have managed to obtain direct feedback from an impressive number of stakeholders. We are therefore confident that this valuable information can have added value for the European Commission's future policy work on public procurement. A special thank you should therefore go to them, for allowing the network to make an important contribution to the EU's Better Regulation Agenda. Karl-Heinz Lambertz President of the European Committee of the Regions 1 2 What can regions and cities do to help make EU policy-making more effective? This was the central question that guided the work of the CoR delegation in the Task Force on subsidiarity, proportionality and doing less more efficiently, chaired by the European Commission's first vice-president, Frans Timmermans, of which I was part as president of the CoR's Subsidiarity Steering Group, together with the CoR president, Karl-Heinz Lambertz and the first vice-chair of the CoR's CIVEX commission, François Decoster. Crucially, this objective required finding ways to better involve regional and local authorities in the follow-up of how EU policies are implemented. One of the ways that we identified was to set up the network of regional hubs for EU policy implementation review at the end of 2018, under the political guidance of the Subsidiarity Steering Group. Through this first implementation report of the network, an important step is made towards better application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, which are cornerstones of EU law. The network of regional hubs is a good example of a practical way to build a common understanding of subsidiarity and proportionality and stronger involvement of local and regional authorities, which often play a specific role in implementing EU law on the ground. This "active subsidiarity" promotes greater ownership and understanding of what the EU does. Michael Schneider President of the Subsidiarity Steering Group 3 4 Executive summary – key findings The RegHub network and the report setting out the results of the first consultation is proof of the European Committee of the Regions' commitment to contributing to the work of the Task Force on subsidiarity, proportionality