{"id":464504,"date":"2026-09-09T16:57:04","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T14:57:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/09\/09\/appalti-imprese-e-sindacati-plaudono-alla-riforma-ma-attendono-liter-di-adozione\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T17:51:49","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T15:51:49","slug":"public-procurement-businesses-and-trade-unions-welcome-the-reform-but-await-the-adoption-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/09\/09\/public-procurement-businesses-and-trade-unions-welcome-the-reform-but-await-the-adoption-process\/","title":{"rendered":"Public procurement: businesses and trade unions welcome the reform but await the adoption process"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013 Public procurement: the reform proposal<\/a> is welcomed by workers and businesses alike. The entire decision-making process must run its course, followed by the implementation phase, but at least in the form presented in Brussels by the European Commission, it seems to have won universal support, starting with the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC<\/a>), which was the first to comment. The new proposal for EU rules on public procurement \u201crepresents a crucial opportunity<\/strong> to ensure that public money promotes quality jobs and collective bargaining\u201d, argues the confederal secretary, Ester Lynch<\/strong>, who believes that now \u201cthe Parliament and the Council must strengthen the Commission\u2019s proposal and turn it into a success for workers.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n

For the trade unions, the European Commission\u2019s initiative \u201cacknowledges that the European approach based on awarding public contracts to the lowest bidder has proved disastrous for the quality of goods and services, as well as for the millions of workers who try to provide them with extremely limited resources.” Building on this, she continues, \u201cthe provisions on subcontracting must be strengthened to combat abuses,<\/strong> including by limiting the length of subcontracting chains.\u201d Furthermore, in the forthcoming inter-institutional negotiations, \u201cMEPs must strengthen the reference to collective bargaining in order to introduce mandatory social conditions.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n

The business community has expressed some satisfaction: “The drive towards digitalisation, improved data collection, and transparency represents a positive step<\/strong> that we support,\u201d states Markus Beyrer<\/strong>, director of BusinessEurope<\/strong>, the association of European industry federations.<\/span><\/span> However, he adds, \u201cpublic procurement is not a panacea for all the strategic challenges facing Europe.\u201d This means that \u201cwe must focus on strengthening competition and finally unlocking a properly functioning cross-border procurement market.\u201d Like the trade unions, businesses are also keeping a close eye on the approval process for the new rules: \u201cWe look forward to working with the EU institutions to ensure that the final rules set out a competitive, accessible, and efficient European procurement landscape.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n

The agricultural sector has also welcomed the proposed reforms to public procurement: “For farmers and agricultural co-operatives, this reform could offer a practical way to strengthen Europe\u2019s strategic autonomy<\/strong> and ensure that European taxpayers\u2019 money supports the continent\u2019s productive capacity, following years of procurement practices focused primarily on the lowest price,” was Copa-Cogeca\u2019s statement<\/a>, the umbrella organisation representing agricultural producer organisations across the EU. Of course, \u201csome elements of the proposal presented today still require further clarification,\u201d and so the primary sector, too, is awaiting the process that is now beginning. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Ecco, the Italian climate think tank, has also welcomed the move. \u201cThe European Commission\u2019s new legislation on public procurement represents a positive step forward, as it moves beyond the “lowest price” approach by introducing quality-based criteria,\u201d said Marta<\/strong> Lovisolo<\/strong>, Senior Advocacy Advisor at ECCO. \u201cHowever, the parameters used to assess the “quality” of a contract can vary considerably, ranging from environmental, climate, and social benefits to considerations relating to safety, resilience, and European origin (made-in-Europe),\u201d she added, emphasising that \u201cclimate performance remains just one of many options.\u201d Therefore, \u201cfor public procurement to provide concrete support for the decarbonisation and competitiveness of European industry, clear, common, and progressively more ambitious low-carbon criteria are needed,\u201d Lovisolo emphasised.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Farmers, industrialists, and trade unions have expressed their satisfaction, but all are calling for improvements to the text as it goes through the approval process and inter-institutional negotiations<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":494,"featured_media":464465,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681],"tags":[25855,27676,28100,25857,26752,27053,33394,28254],"class_list":["post-464504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-agriculture-en","tag-on","tag-businesseurope-en-2","tag-copa-cogeca-en","tag-imprese-en","tag-etuc-en-2","tag-ue","tag-workers-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/494"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464504"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":464505,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464504\/revisions\/464505"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}