The European Commission intends to reorient EU public procurement – and called for a 12-week consultation by business and civil society. FEMNET has delivered a clear opinion and calls for gender equality and social responsibility to be firmly anchored in European public procurement practice.
The opinion describes how EU public procurement directives should be much more aligned with the European SDGs. In particular, this applies to the promotion of gender equality, which to date has hardly played a role in tendering procedures.
Specifically, FEMNET proposes that the Concept of ‘most economically advantageous tender’ apply in such a way that quality, environmental and social standards as well as equality criteria are effectively incorporated into the assessment. This is because ‘cheap’ is not the same as ‘economic’ – but in practice, it is often only purchased at the best price. Public tenders should be International human rights and labour standards (e.g. ILO core labour standards, UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights) and for certain Risk industries (e.g. textiles, IT, food) Mandatory sustainability and gender equality requirements included.
FEMNET also calls for Increased transparency in supply chains. For example, there could be an EU-wide database on production sites, which would make it easier for Member States to implement it. You should also: better monitoringhow often sustainability criteria are actually applied in procurement procedures. So far, this has hardly been statistically recorded. It is also important to Training of procurement managers, so that they can expertly integrate social, environmental and gender-responsive criteria into procurement procedures.
Was ist ein Konsultationsprozess? Warum ist es wichtig, uns zu beteiligen?
In a so-called consultation process, the EU Commission invites organisations, businesses and citizens to contribute their assessments and demands. It is important to take a position here so that not only economic interests dominate, but also civil society perspectives, such as on human rights, the environment and gender equality, feed into the revision of the Directives. The EU directives on public procurement must then be transposed into national law by all Member States. Decisions at EU level therefore also have an impact on German procurement practice. An order volume of about 600 billion euros per year falls directly under the EU directives; EU Member States procure goods and services worth more than €2.6 trillion each year. A lot of money with which they could, for example, promote fair wages, good working conditions and the avoidance of (gender-specific) discrimination in global supply chains.