Commission's green procurement plans heavily criticised

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Published 19 April 2002, updated 09 November 2006

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EMAS, public procurement

The Commission's plans to introduce environmental considerations into its public procurement rules were heavily debated during a one-day Forum Europe conference on 18 April.

The following issues were raised in the debate:

Several Member States have taken or are planning legislative initiatives to green their public procurement policies. As this leads to distortions of the single market, some form of harmonisation of green procurement rules is necessary;
Should the EU not go from green procurement to sustainable procurement, taking into consideration the values of the three pillars of sustainable development (social, economic and environment)?
What can the Commission do when local authorities do not abide by the rules? (the crime and punishment question)
What are he implications of the opinion of the Advocate-General of the European Court of Justice in the Helsinki bus case C-513/99. In December 2001, an Opinion of the Advocate-General argued that public authorities can integrate public concerns into public procurement decisions and that the economic benefit need not be for the contracting authority alone.
How will this greening of procurement rules affect smaller businesses and suppliers from developing countries? Will they not be disadvantaged?
Are these proposed new rules in line with global requirements under WTO?

Positions:

Jean-Marie Devos of the European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC) stated that his industry is in favour of green procurement but warned the Commission not to take a one-sided approach to this issue, by concentrating on one social value only (environment). He also pointed to the fact that the concept of proportionality should come into play (small environmental benefits might lead to very high costs for the tax payers in some cases).

Mrs. Anne-Françoise Gailly of the Belgian Ministry for the Environment presented the latests plans of the Belgian government to "green" public procurement. She underlined that for her department public procurement should also include social and ethical aspects, thereby supporting some of the views of the more critical NGOs.

Green MEP Inger Schörling demanded some flexibility in the rules on green procurement. Not all Member States need to have the same set of rules, according to the European parliamentarian.

Mrs. Carola Taschner of the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) repeated earlier criticisms of the NGO Coalition for Green and Social Procurement (EEB, WWF, Greenpeace, Solidar, Oxfam, Social Platform and others). These organisations say that the new proposals actually restrict the possibilities to include social and environmental aspects in the procurement process. They also lamented the fact that process and production methods, external costs and ethical criteria can not be taken into consideration. Mrs. Taschner said that the current Commission proposals are "a step backward" and are not in line with the EU Treaty provisions on integration of the environment and development into all EU policies.

Next steps:

The Council is expected to come to a common position on this issue in its Internal Market Council of 21 May. The European Parliament will then probably hold its second reading in the autumn of 2002. In the meant ime, the European Court of Justice could add to the arguments of the critics if it would follow the opinion of its Advocate-General later this year.

Background:

In May 2000, the Commission published a proposal to revise the 1993 public procurement directives. The aim of the revision was to simplify and modernise the public procurement rules.

In July 2001, the European Commission issued a Communication on environmentally-friendly procurement. The Communication was published to explain and clarify how environmental concerns can be taken into account within the existing public procurement legislation.

In January 2002, the European Parliament held its first reading of these proposals. MEPs proposed several amendments to more effectively include environmental and social criteria in the procurement process.