This project was concluded in September 2022.
Project information
Project name
The strategic use of public procurement: Mapping variations in the application of EU procurement rules across Europe
Project manager
Brigitte Pircher
Other project members
Maciej Sychowiec
Participating organizations
Linnaeus University
Financier
The Crafoord foundation (Crafoordska stiftelsen)
Timetable
1 Oct 2021–30 Sept 2022
Subject
Political science (Department of Political Science, Faculty of Social Sciences)
Publication
Pircher, B. (2022). EU public procurement policy during Covid-19: A turning point for legitimate EU governance? Politics and Governance. 10 (3). 131-142.
More about the project
Public procurement, the process by which public authorities purchase work, goods or services from companies, is critical to the European economy as it accounts for an astonishing 2 trillion Euro and involves more than 250,000 public authorities per year.
Despite its financial volume and the increasingly strategic use of procurement as policy instrument, no research so far has explored the varying use and practical application of EU procurement rules across the member states. Even though the 2014 revision of the EU procurement directives included for the first time social and environmental criteria, no comparative research so far exists that examines to what extent these criteria are also applied in the member states. Therefore, we aim to fill this gap in the research and create a new and comprehensive database on member states’ performance on public procurement from the introduction of the 2014 directives until 2021.
For this purpose, we have developed a catalogue of 12 criteria within four topic fields to map variations in the practical application of public procurement rules in the EU member states. These data provide us with the possibility to assess the strategic use of procurement, i.e. the inclusion of social or environmental criteria or the use of specific procedures. The database will give us new insights into the functioning of one of the most relevant economic sectors in Europe.
The project is part of the research in the Swedish Network for European Studies – Lnu research group.
Staff
