Paper "Towards a More Coherente and Effective Public Procurement Legal System" submitted at Public Procurement Global Revolution XI 14 June 2022, published on the internal Conference Website and discussed during the conference

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperAcademic

Abstract

Newspapers and academic journals regularly report on problematic procurement procedures in areas such as the social domain, home care services, the collection and disposal of household waste, public transport and the purchase of schoolbooks. The recurring question in these debates is about the advantages (and disadvantages) of having the State3 perform these activities itself instead of outsourcing them to the free market. The question whether such activities should be considered as economic or as of general interest according to European law has dominated the scientific discussion in the last decades. The debate has
mainly focussed on how these concepts - activities in the economic sphere or in the general interest - should be defined and under which conditions competition and public procurement regulation should be applied. The general assumption has been that determining whether public procurement law applies or not, depends indeed on the nature of the activities according to (European) competition and internal market law. The same question dominated the wave of privatisation4 that has swept Europe in the mid1980s when a great number of activities that previously were offered by the State were transferred to private parties. In my view, focussing on the nature of the activities results in an unproductive debate. The discussion has been centred for a (too) long time excessively on the nature of the activities, with much less emphasis on how the State uses its wide discretionary power to choose its in- or outsourcing strategy and to achieve its policy goals.
Original languageEnglish
Pages1-11
Number of pages12
Publication statusPublished - 14 Jun 2022
EventPublic procurement Global Revolution XI - University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom
Duration: 13 Jun 202214 Jun 2022
https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/pprg/events/2021/global-revolution-xi.aspx

Conference

ConferencePublic procurement Global Revolution XI
Country/TerritoryUnited Kingdom
CityNottingham
Period13/06/2214/06/22
Internet address

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