The first meeting of the new group of experts in the European Commission’s Stakeholder Experts Group on Public Procurement took place on 3rd of April in Bucharest, Romania. EPLG’s member from Finland Dr. Kirsi-Maria Halonen is part of the current Experts Group continuing bringing academic input to the work of the Group following the example of Dr. Albert Sanchez Graells, an EPLG member who was part of the Group during the previous mandate.

In the April meeting, Dr. Halonen gave a presentation on collusion in public procurement focusing on consortia bids and bids from affiliated companies. The discussion on collusion is related to Commission’s plans to draft guidelines in relation to the application of exclusion on the basis of Art. 57(4)(d) of Directive 2014/24. Moreover, the Group discussed the possible solutions to the problem of  “too little competition and too few bids” in public contract awards, which is a current phenomem across Member States.