The European Commission published its long-awaited proposal to revise the EU Public Procurement Directive. EFFAT’s first and most urgent concern is that the special procedure applicable to canteen and contract catering services is left without the clarification needed to guarantee that these contracts will be awarded on social and environmental quality criteria. This loophole affects 1 million workers across Europe who feed other workers, children in schools, and people in hospitals and care homes. Without explicit, binding clarification, public buyers procuring school meals, hospital catering and care-home food services could remain free to keep awarding contracts on price alone, leaving contract catering exposed to exactly the race-to-the-bottom this reform is meant to end.
Yet, EFFAT positively notes that the Commission has taken on board some of its key recommendations for a reform where public money benefits companies that respect workers’ and trade unions’ rights and offer better working conditions. The revision opens the door to EFFAT’s demands for public buyers to award contracts based on social and environmental criteria and marks a step towards the strategic use of public procurement to support high-quality jobs, better working conditions, and the provision of healthy, qualitative food produced in an environmentally and socially responsible way across Europe.
What we deem positive:
- Quality-based award criteria: Under the new Article 98, quality must count for at least 30% of the total points awarded in public tenders, rising to 50% in labour-intensive sectors. Crucially, “quality” is explicitly linked to social considerations, including the creation of high-quality jobs and improved working conditions, especially through collective bargaining. It is also linked to environmental considerations, with a specific reference to the quality and sustainability of food.
- Predictable price revision: The text introduces predictable price-adjustment mechanisms, including indexation linked to objective economic indicators such as price indices, inflation rates or input costs. EFFAT regrets, however, that the proposal does not explicitly reference wage increases resulting from collective agreements as grounds for price revision.
Despite these advances, EFFAT identifies several gaps that must be addressed as the file moves through the legislative process:
- Contract catering left in limbo. As set out above, the special procedure for canteen services urgently needs clarification to ensure these contracts are awarded on social and environmental quality criteria, guaranteeing high-quality, healthy food produced under socially and environmentally responsible conditions. EFFAT considers this the most pressing gap in the entire proposal.
- No mandatory exclusion for social violations. Failure to respect social standards is still not established as a mandatory ground for exclusion from public contracts.
- Subcontracting loophole remains. A ban on subcontracting the entire contract will do little to change current practice, where abuse is concentrated in partial subcontracting chains.
- Quality weighting could go further. While welcome, the quality criteria could be raised as high as 80% in labour-intensive sectors.
- Abnormally low tenders still unaddressed at EU level. Public buyers may request justification for abnormally low tenders and reject them if the low price is not satisfactorily explained, but the proposal does not set an objective EU-wide threshold to identify such tenders.
“Social criteria and fair wages are finally being recognised as central to public procurement, not mere decoration. This is a step in the right direction, made possible by years of intense political pressure from EFFAT and our affiliates. We hope this new proposal will put an end to the race to the bottom that has characterised the awarding of public contracts under the current directive – but that hope depends on closing the gap on contract catering first,” said Virginie Demoucron, EFFAT Political Secretary for Tourism.
“The job is not finished,” said Enrico Somaglia, EFFAT Secretary General. “Without clarity for contract catering, a mandatory exclusion for labour rights violations, a real threshold for abnormally low tenders, and a clear priority given to companies that apply collective bargaining agreements, public money will still be able to flow to companies that undercut workers. EFFAT will continue to push the European Parliament and the Council. Public procurement rules should be used strategically to improve working conditions for all workers in the agri-food supply chain’
ENDS
