At the end of November, the European Builders Confederation(EBC) set out a series of recommendations on how to facilitate the participation of SMEs in public procurement.
In particular, the organisation is calling for a reduction in the administrative burden. For example, contracting authorities should not ask tenderers for administrative documents that are already available and calls for tender should be collated on national online procurement platforms (HUB Contratti Pubblici in Italy, Tendernet in the Netherlands).
One of the main obstacles to the participation of SMEs in public procurement is insufficient allocation of contracts. To remedy this, EBC has suggested making it compulsory to divide major contracts into lots, a measure that currently remains optional. The possibility of forming consortia to respond to calls for tender should also be encouraged.
The organisation has also made recommendations to support small subcontractors in the construction sector. In their view, primary responsibility within a subcontracting chain should remain with the main contractor in order to avoid disproportionate legal and financial burdens for SMEs.
Construction SMEs support the use of social and environmental criteria in public procurement. They believe that these criteria should be conditions for the performance of the contract and not criteria for the award of a contract.
Finally, EBC is calling to rebalance the relationship between the price of a contract and the quality of the work provided, in particular through binding measures to detect abnormally low bids.
Read the recommendations: https://aeur.eu/f/jv8 (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)