EU can and should add social criteria to public procurement

In her 2023 State of the Union address last month, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen acknowledged the importance of protecting the European social model: “We are for competition, but not for a race to the bottom” she said.

Unfortunately, her address fell short of concrete proposals for the improvement of Europe’s workers, who are suffering from falling living standards, an erosion of working conditions and a lack of workplace democracy.

But there’s a simple reform the commission could undertake to reverse the trend — by drawing lessons from its flagship project: the Green Deal.

As a new UNI Europa report released today (10 October) demonstrates, several green commission proposals hold important lessons that could easily be applied to support working people across Europe.

In fact, the commission has made laudable progress in ensuring that public money supports the green transition; it can now do the same with jobs and labour standards.

The key here is public procurement. Amounting to a whopping €2 trillion per year in the EU, which represents 14 percent of the bloc’s GDP, it is a simple yet powerful lever to raise living standards for Europe’s working people.

The commission knows about the power of public procurement. Its Green Deal states that “public authorities, including the EU institutions, should lead by example and ensure that their procurement is green.”