{"id":25883,"date":"2024-10-25T10:49:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-25T08:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uniglobalunion.org\/news\/eu-parliamentarians-questioned-prospective-eu-commissioners-on-public-procurement-and-collective-bargaining\/"},"modified":"2024-10-25T11:28:51","modified_gmt":"2024-10-25T09:28:51","slug":"eu-parliamentarians-questioned-prospective-eu-commissioners-on-public-procurement-and-collective-bargaining","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/uniglobalunion.org\/news\/eu-parliamentarians-questioned-prospective-eu-commissioners-on-public-procurement-and-collective-bargaining\/","title":{"rendered":"EU Commissioners-designate questioned by EU parliamentarians on public procurement and collective bargaining"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Between 4 and 12 November, the European Parliament will host a series of hearings to grill EU Commissioners-designate on their legislative strategy. This moment is crucial for holding them to account for their economic and social positions. UNI Europa will focus on the hearings of <strong>Roxana M\u00eenzatu <\/strong>(Executive Vice-President-designate for People, Skills and Preparedness, Romania) and <strong>St\u00e9phane S\u00e9journ\u00e9<\/strong> (Executive Vice-President-designate for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy, France). While the former would be tasked with portfolios related to social and employment policies, the latter would oversee the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uni-europa.org\/news\/von-der-leyens-public-procurement-reform-must-lift-workers-living-standards\/\">upcoming revision of the public procurement directives<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n<p>Ahead of the hearings, European Parliament committees submitted written questions to the Commissioners-designate. <strong>UNI<\/strong> <strong>Europa campaigned successfully to have the candidates questioned on two of our priorities: EU public procurement and collective bargaining.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n<p>This comes after <strong>essential workers from nine European countries rallied in Brussels on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uni-europa.org\/news\/essential-workers-from-across-europe-rally-in-brussels-for-better-pay-and-conditions-through-eu-procurement-reform\/\">1 October<\/a><\/strong>, demanding that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen act to improve pay and conditions for millions of workers through procurement reform.<\/p>\r\n<p>Both the Committee for the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs\u2019 (EMPL) questions to St\u00e9phane S\u00e9journ\u00e9 focused on the revision of the public procurement directives:<\/p>\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<p>\u201cHow will you ensure that the social aspects of the EU public procurement legislation are strengthened, notably with regard to social award criteria in public contracts, in view of: limiting\u00a0 subcontracting chains and regulating the role of labour intermediaries; ensuring the respect of workers&#8217; rights and the application of collective agreements; enhancing employment opportunities for persons with disabilities and workers with support needs; ensuring that\u00a0 not-for-profit\/social economy providers of social services are not excluded from public contracts?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n<p><strong>In his <\/strong><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/hearings.elections.europa.eu\/documents\/sejourne\/sejourne_declarationofinterests_en.pdf\">written response<\/a>, Commissioner-designate S\u00e9journ\u00e9 made four statements to clarify his position on public procurement reform. UNI Europa welcomes his<\/strong><\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n\t<li>statement that public procurement has an \u201cimportant role to play\u201d in the promotion of high labour standards such as \u201csound competition and avoiding a race to the bottom in the quality of jobs we create\u2019.<\/li>\r\n\t<li>suggestion that the revision of the public procurement directives is an opportunity to identify \u201cpossible steps towards promoting the use of social clauses, enhancing social responsibility and sustainability in procurement\u201d.<\/li>\r\n\t<li>promise that local authorities and social partners will be \u201cproperly involved in the process in order to feed their input into the revision\u201d.<\/li>\r\n\t<li>support the Commission\u2019s efforts to look into its own use of social clauses.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p><strong>At the same time, UNI Europa is concerned by S\u00e9journ\u00e9\u2019s lack of clarity on two points:<\/strong><\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n\t<li>S\u00e9journ\u00e9 focussed on \u201cadded value\u201d of public procurement on the acquisition of security technologies, rather than the application of public procurement on everyday services which make up the majority of public procurement contracts. This will have to be addressed.<\/li>\r\n\t<li>Sejourn\u00e9 did not deliver a detailed response on how the social dimension would be implemented, or by which criteria. Sejourn\u00e9 linked an improved social impact with the need to simplify and speed up the processes of public procurement. He suggested that it is \u201cthe complexity of our rules which often hinder the participation of small entities in public procurement\u201d. While this may be a factor, UNI Europa research <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uni-europa.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/11\/Public-procurement-December-2021-snapshot-report.pdf\">has demonstrated<\/a> that many companies do not join public tenders if the main criterion is the lowest price.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>As for Commissioner-designate, Roxana M\u00eenzatu, the committees asked her directly how she will meet objectives on \u201ccollective bargaining\u201d in line with the European Pillar of Social Rights. UNI Europa welcomes M\u00eenzatu\u2019s commitment to strengthening collective bargaining and her proposal for a <strong>new Pact for European Social Dialogue:<\/strong><\/p>\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<p>\u201cI will invest full support into <strong>strengthening social dialogue and collective bargaining<\/strong>, building on the Minimum Wage Directive and the 2023 Council Recommendation on social dialogue. I will start by proposing, early 2025, <strong>a new Pact for European Social Dialogue<\/strong>,<strong> working together with European trade unions and employers.<\/strong> Collective bargaining and social dialogue are in fact essential for a flexible and inclusive adaptation to the upcoming challenges of European labour markets, connected to the three transitions: green, digital and demographic.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n<p>Taken together, responses by the Commissioners-designate mark an explicit move towards the most socially progressive revision of the EU Public Procurement Directives, including the obligation for all public contracts to provide for collective bargaining. Sejourn\u00e9 stated that he will work closely with M\u00eenzatu to \u201cpromote social dialogue and high labour standards\u201d in the course of the revision. UNI Europa will keep campaigning to ensure that public procurement will not fund social dumping but strengthen collective bargaining instead.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Between 4 and 12 November, the European Parliament will host a series of hearings to grill EU Commissioners-designate on their legislative strategy. This moment is crucial for holding them to account for their economic and social positions. UNI Europa will focus on the hearings of Roxana M\u00eenzatu (Executive Vice-President-designate for People, Skills and Preparedness, Romania)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":25884,"template":"","categories":[41],"global-issues":[],"sectors":[],"cross-sector-groups":[],"workers-rights":[],"regions":[84],"topics":[46],"class_list":["post-25883","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","regions-uni-europa","topics-procuringdecentwork"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>EU Commissioners-designate questioned by EU parliamentarians on public procurement and collective bargaining<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/uniglobalunion.org\/news\/eu-parliamentarians-questioned-prospective-eu-commissioners-on-public-procurement-and-collective-bargaining\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"EU Commissioners-designate questioned by EU parliamentarians on public procurement and collective bargaining\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Between 4 and 12 November, the European Parliament will host a series of hearings to grill EU Commissioners-designate on their legislative strategy. 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