EU business needs level playing field in international procurement

IPI should help open up third-country public procurement markets closed to EU firms

Today, BusinessEurope published its position paper on the adoption of an international procurement instrument (IPI) by the EU. Public procurement is an important engine for economic growth, with over 250,000 public authorities in the EU purchasing goods, services, works and supplies, amounting to around EUR 2 trillion every year, accounting for approximately 14% of the EU GDP (in 2017).

The EU is considered one of the most open procurement markets in the world, but often the EU’s trading partners don’t allow reciprocal access to their procurement markets. The core objective of the IPI should be to give leverage to the European Commission to negotiate opening up third-country public procurement markets that are closed to EU companies.

BusinessEurope’s Director General Markus J. Beyrer said: "The International Procurement Instrument should support efforts to open third-country public procurement markets that are currently closed to EU firms. The IPI must help reduce market disruptions on the EU public procurement market. We need to level the playing field, for instance by mitigating the disruptions caused by unfairly subsidised state-owned enterprises from countries that are not open for EU companies.

With our position paper we want to bring the business views into the debate and help to unblock the legislative process. Our aim is to have an effective IPI as soon as possible. A tool that is not unnecessarily burdensome for companies and can help them in these challenging times."