Source: European Parliament
The Commission promotes the uptake of sustainability considerations in public procurement, including those related to the environmental and social impact of the services and products purchased by public buyers, in line with current EU public procurement rules.
It does so through guidance, capacity building initiatives[1], supporting Member State Joint Actions[2] and the EU green public procurement criteria, including specific criteria for the food and catering sector[3].
The Commission is also preparing criteria that could help contracting authorities to introduce, on a voluntary basis, sustainability aspects in the food and catering services that they are buying.
The Political Guidelines 2024-2029[4] announced a revision of the 2014 EU public procurement Directives[5]. At the moment the Commission is carrying out an evaluation of these Directives[6] to assess whether EU public procurement rules work as intended. Once the evaluation is completed the Commission will consider concrete measures and options to shape the new proposal.
It will notably seek to further support ‘best value’ purchases, to reward quality and sustainability as set forward in Vision for Agriculture and Food[7].
- [1] https://public-buyers-community.ec.europa.eu/communities
- [2] https://bestremap.eu/procurement/; https://preventncd.eu/work-packages/wp-05/public-food-procurement-in-public-settings-in-the-eu/
- [3] https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/f8e9fe10-ff7d-11e9-8c1f-01aa75ed71a1/language-en
- [4] https://commission.europa.eu/about/commission-2024-2029_en
- [5] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2014/23/oj/eng; https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2014/24/oj/eng; https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2014/25/oj/eng
- [6] https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/14427-Public-procurement-directives-evaluation_en
- [7] https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/vision-agriculture-food_en