Article 1

Title

Public Policies for Procurement under COVID19

Author

  • Luís Valadares Tavares – [email protected]
    Full Professor Emeritus of Systems and Management, Instituto Superior Técnico and Full Professor of Management, Lusíada University. President of the Portuguese Observatory of Technology Foresight (OPET) , President of the Portuguese Society of Public Markets (APMEP), Coordinator and Researcher of COMEGI (Research center on organizations, markets, and industrial management), Chief-Editor of European Journal of Public Procurement Markets (EJPPM), Scientific Advisor of VORTAL and Ombudsman of the Portuguese. Previously he was General Director of Planning Education and Manager of The Education Investment Program (PRODEP) of the Ministry of Education (88-92) , President of the Education Committee of OECD (90-92) and President of the Portuguese Institute of Public Administration (INA) (2003-2007). Invited Professor of the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences of the Portuguese Catholic University and of several foreign Universities. Expert on Decision Sciences , Negotiation and Conflict Management , Public Management , Public Procurement , e-Public Procurement and Social Networks. He was appointed by the Scientific Council of IST (University of Lisbon) to conduct with Prof. Gregory Parnell and Prof. Paulo Martins the evaluation of the Department of Engineering and Management of IST (University of Lisbon). Author of 25 books edited by OPET, INA , Mcgraw-Hill and Kluwer and he is author of more than 85 research papers published by international scientific journals
  • Pedro Arruda – [email protected]
    Research Fellow at CERIS – Civil Engineering Research and Innovation for Sustainability. His main research areas are public procurement, public contracts evaluation, multicriteria decision analysis and decision support systems,

Abstract

Public procurement is a main issue in the frontline of Governments fighting COVID 19 pandemic as the need for additional and urgent acquisitions as well as the need to consolidate the supply chains and to promote sustainable and innovative procurement have been a source of deep changes and main challenges disturbing public markets and invalidating several assumptions of the traditional public contracting.
In this paper, the development of appropriate public policies to cope with these challenges is studied following the approach suggested by several authors and including four stages: a Stage on Facts and Issues where the main challenges and conditions are studied, the Options Stage to describe which polices and procedures can be adopted, a Values Stage stating the main values to be pursued and, finally, a Policies Stage including the selection of the recommended policies.
The analysis of the challenges and facts includes the study of a taxonomy of short and longer term needs and the available options are based on the comparative study of procedures ruled by the European Directives on Public Procurement approved on 2014. The major values to be respected include the principle of competition which is a major institutional principle of the European Treaty and of the Directives as well as the goal of promoting sustainable and innovative public procurement.
Several indicators are suggested to describe the application of the public procurement policies adopted across EU and their comparative analysis is presented using the TED data for contracts concerning COVID 19.
The case of Portugal is discussed and final remarks about the recommended public policies are also included herein.

Keywords

COVID19; public policies; procurement; European Directives; urgency; sustainability; innovation.

 

Citation

Tavares, L. V. & Arruda, P. (2021). Public Policies for Procurement under COVID19, European Journal of Public Procurement Markets, 3(1), 09-36. https://doi.org/10.54611/CUIN2767