Analysing procurement policies from party manifestos on the run up to the Portuguese General Election (IV)

Iniciativa Liberal (ALDE):

When it comes down to public procurement, the liberal party is the only one arguing for a root and branch reform of the Public Contracts Code. They correctly point out the salami slicing of accountability and guard rail features that were included in the legislation and were taken out either by the Socialists when they were in government or the ruling coalition. They are absolutely right on this, but this is not a policy proposal.

As for guidelines of such reform, the party wants to improve transparency, agility (flexibility?) and competitiveness with the new legislation focusing on defending the public interest, transparency, efficiency and efficacy. Not much to disagree here, although I have my reservations if they really are suggesting more flexibility as it is unclear what their suggestion really is. The same can be said about defending the public interest: EU procurement rules do not exist to defend the public interest, but the market. And we don't want to go back to a time where administrative law existed to protect the State, sorry, the 'public interest.'

Grand ideas are all fine and dandy but we do not know is how these objectives are supposed to be delivered and how the legislation would look in the end. And as I said on the first entry into this series, I am not sure it makes much sense to consider a complete overhaul of the Public Contracts Code when the procurement Directives are being reviewed. I guess the counter-argument to my view is that Portuguese parliament terms last 4 years...and it is likely we will have another general election before any new European legislation comes into force.

What has my full agreement however, is the view that qualification requirements need to be simplified to make life easier for economic operators and contracting authorities. As usual, the devil will be on the details but there is scope for improvements there.

The party final policy proposal for public procurement is one of suggesting the creation of sectorial central purchasing bodies to improve procurement efficiency in repeat purchases. I am not up to speed with central purchasing bodies overall but I always feel that sectorial ones tend to be a half way house of sorts? There are sectors where this may make perfecet sense like healthcare...which already exists in Portugal. Other than that I do think there are way too many drawbacks such as too many parallel structures and no real competition between these central purchasing bodies.

This year's policies from the liberals are completely new and instead of more specific proposals, the party has gone for a broader suggestion of a deep revision of the Public Contracts Code.

Grade: 03/10