CECOP-CICOPA Europe has sent a letter to the European Commission calling on the EU authorities to place greater emphasis on quality and less on price in public procurement specifications. In the same document, CECOP puts forward a series of recommendations to improve relations with social economy enterprises and cooperatives, such as removing administrative burdens or clarifying, where necessary, the grounds for exclusion of submitted tenders.
As stated in the text, cooperatives play an important role in retaining wealth within their local communities, which makes them ideal partners for ensuring European preference when allocating public funds.
However, under the current Public Procurement Directive, industrial and service cooperatives often face the risk of being excluded or experience difficulties in participating in public tenders.
CECOP stresses that cooperatives are well positioned to contribute to the achievement of the EU’s strategic priorities, including environmental objectives and social innovation, as well as to strengthening the EU’s strategic autonomy.
“As recommended by the Letta report, public procurement should be used to increase both the impact and the market presence of the social economy, whose broader family includes cooperatives,” the CECOP-CICOPA text specifies.
Recommendations
CECOP calls on the Commission to consider a series of recommendations, the first being the reduction of administrative burdens in tendering procedures in order to create a level playing field for small and medium-sized cooperatives. It also calls for encouraging the participation of small and medium-sized cooperatives in business consortia.
It also requests clarification of the rules on grounds for exclusion (Article 57) in order to avoid uncertainty; making price revision clauses mandatory; as well as introducing the concept of “Made in EU” and including cooperatives within it.
The full letter can be consulted via this link.
