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

Livre (Greens/European Free Alliance)

Back in 2024, Livre had one of the most compelling set of policy proposals for public procurement. Thorough and detailed, unlike those from the larger parties. For the upcoming general election, however, Livre has decided not to add any new ideas for public procurement opting for trimming them a bit instead. Gone are the ideas about PPPs, innovation and fighting corruption (the latter only in connection with procurement).

This leaves us with only two policies to look at. The first is enhancing the Beneficial Ownership Registry in connection with public contracts awarded directly. Nothing against this idea per se, but as I mentioned last year there is some weird wording that could have been elaborated a bit further this time around. I still do not know what they mean by wanting economic operators to 'lodge contributions to the contracting authority' on the Registry.

The second proposal from Livre is to improve the accessibility and quality of data in the national procurement portal, something that once more has my full support. As in 2024 the party (correctly) wants to extend transparency to the actual payments made to economic operators. I think they are not far from wanting a transaction based system for data collection instead of the notice one we currently have, but maybe they are lacking the right lingo to express it.

That second proposal, however, comes with a sting in its tail as the 2025 text includes an extra sentence: "and extending exclusions to economic operators based in tax havens." As mentioned earlier, it is not up for national law to extend procurement exclusion grounds for contracts above thresholds. Below thresholds, yes, with the caveat I mentioned for the ruling coalition's proposals about contracts with certain cross-border interest. Honestly, I do not think this policy makes sense and was added to what was until then a fairly coherent paragraph. It does not help that this was added in a section about corruption. Tax optimisation is one thing, tax evasion another (and already an exclusion ground), procurement data quality/access a third one.

I would add as well that the CJEU in Kolin and Quingdao has really laid down a marker on who can determine market access and that is not the national member States since the Court considers it an exclusive competence of the Union.

Grade: 5.5