Smart Public Procurement and Labour Standards - Pushing the Discussion after RegioPost

Smart procurement aims to leverage public buying power in pursuit of social, environmental and innovation goals. Socially-orientated smart procurement has been a controversial issue under EU law. The extent to which the Court of Justice (ECJ) has supported or rather constrained its development has been intensely debated by academics and practitioners alike. After the slow development of a seemingly permissive approach, the ECJ case law reached an apparent turning point a decade ago in the often criticised judgments in Ruffert and Laval , which left a number of open questions. The more recent judgments in Bundesdruckerei and RegioPost have furthered the ECJ case law on socially orientated smart procurement and aimed to clarify the limits within which Member States can use it to enforce labour standards. This case law opens up additional possibilities, but it also creates legal uncertainty concerning the interaction of the EU rules on the posting of workers, public procurement and fundamental internal market freedoms. These developments have been magnified by the reform of the EU public procurement rules in 2014. This book assesses the limits that the revised EU rules and the more recent ECJ case law impose on socially-orientated smart procurement and, more generally, critically reflects on potential future developments in this area of intersection of several strands of EU economic law.

List of contents

1. Introduction
Albert Sánchez-Graells
Part I: Constitutional and Internal Market Aspects of the Enforcement of Labour Standards through Social Smart Procurement in the EU
2. RegioPost—A Constitutional Perspective
Phil Syrpis
3. Article 56 TFEU and the Principle of Proportionality: Why, When and How Should They be Applied After RegioPost?
Piotr Bogdanowicz
4. Upholding General Principles versus Distinguishing Cases: On the Use of Precedent in EU Public Procurement Law (A Case Study)
Roberto Caranta
Part II: Procurement and Market Perspectives of the Enforcement of Labour Standards in the EU
5. Living Wages in Public Contracts: Impact of the RegioPost Judgment and the Proposed Revisions to the Posted Workers Directive
Abby Semple
6. Competition and State Aid Implications of ‘Public’ Minimum Wage Clauses in EU Public Procurement after RegioPost
Albert Sánchez-Graells
7. Public Procurement and Business for Value: Looking for Alignment in Law and Practice
Nina Boeger
Part III: Labour Law Perspectives of Social Smart Procurement in the EU
8. The Operation of Labour Law as the Exception: The Case of Public Procurement
Lisa Rodgers
9. Government as a Socially Responsible Market Actor After RegioPost
ACL Davies
10. Fair’s Fair: Public Procurement, Posting and Pay
Catherine Barnard
11. Collective Bargaining and Social Dumping in Posting and Procurement: What Might Come from Recent Court of Justice Case Law and the Proposed Reform of the Posted Workers Directive?
Tonia Novitz
Part IV: Perspectives on Social Smart Procurement Beyond the EU
12. RegioPost and Labour Rights Conditionality: Comparing the EU Procurement Regime with the WTO Government Procurement Agreement
Maria Anna Corvaglia
13. A View from Outside the EU: UNCITRAL’s Approach to Balancing Economic and Social Considerations in Public Procurement
Caroline Nicholas

About the author

Albert Sanchez-Graells is Reader in Economic Law at the University of Bristol Law School and Member of the European Commission Stakeholder Expert Group on Public Procurement.

Summary

Smart procurement aims to leverage public buying power in pursuit of social, environmental and innovation goals. Socially-orientated smart procurement has been a controversial issue under EU law. The extent to which the Court of Justice (ECJ) has supported or rather constrained its development has been intensely debated by academics and practitioners alike. After the slow development of a seemingly permissive approach, the ECJ case law reached an apparent turning point a decade ago in the often criticised judgments in Rüffert and Laval, which left a number of open questions.

The more recent judgments in Bundesdruckerei and RegioPost have furthered the ECJ case law on socially orientated smart procurement and aimed to clarify the limits within which Member States can use it to enforce labour standards. This case law opens up additional possibilities, but it also creates legal uncertainty concerning the interaction of the EU rules on the posting of workers, public procurement and fundamental internal market freedoms. These developments have been magnified by the reform of the EU public procurement rules in 2014.

This book assesses the limits that the revised EU rules and the more recent ECJ case law impose on socially-orientated smart procurement and, more generally, critically reflects on potential future developments in this area of intersection of several strands of EU economic law.

Foreword

This book assesses the limits that EU rules and ECJ case law impose on socially-orientated smart procurement and, more generally, critically reflects on potential future developments in this area.

Additional text

[T]he book is an interesting example of how a few cases from the ECJ can have an impact on EU law as well as on national law in so many aspects. Generally, the book is a good contribution to the discussion on the incorporation of labour standards, but it is an even better contribution to understanding the reasoning of the ECJ and can hence be read by anyone with an interest in EU law... the book is a significant input to the ongoing debate on the topic of the enforcement of labour standards in public procurement as well as from a general EU law perspective.

Product details

• Authors: Albert Sanchez Graells
• Assisted by: Albert Sanchez Graells (Editor), Albert (University of Bristol) Sanchez Graells (Editor), Albert Sánchez Graells (Editor), Albert Sanchez-Graells (Editor)
• Publisher: Hart Publishing
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 30.06.2020
• EAN: 9781509939503
• ISBN: 978-1-5099-3950-3
• No. of pages: 312
• Subject: Social sciences, law, business > Law > Labour law, social law