The EU in the World: Public Procurement Policy and the EU-WTO relationship

Tsarouhas, Dimitris and Ladi, Stella (2015) The EU in the World: Public Procurement Policy and the EU-WTO relationship. [Conference Proceedings] (Submitted)

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Abstract

To what extent and in what ways does the European Union (EU) seek to adjust the global public policy debate to its own goals and priorities? Our paper sheds light to these crucial questions regarding the EU’s global role by examining the Union’s relationship to the World Trade Organization (WTO), adopting and revising public procurement regulations as the case study under investigation. Using a qualitative research methodology and relying on more than 15 interviews with EU, WTO and interest groups, the paper sheds new light to an underdeveloped research area. Theoretically, we point to the limitations of the Principal Agent (PA) approach in EU governance and adopt a transnational regulatory networks approach instead. Empirically, the paper demonstrates the cyclical nature of the relationship between the EU and the WTO in adopting and revising the Union’s public procurement Directives as well as the WTO’s Global Procurement Agreement (GPA). This cyclical relationship demonstrates the existence of an informal transnational regulatory network negotiating the modernization of the EU procurement directives. On the other hand, much fewer actors are active in the revision of the GPA. With the Commission playing a central role in framing the contours of the EU policy debate and representing the EU member-states in the revision of the GPA, the paper also highlights the enhanced role of the European Parliament (EP) in reforming the EU policy agenda on procurement policy.

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