The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action in collaboration with ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability hosted the workshop on the strategic use of public procurement in Germany on September 12th, 2024. The workshop was held at the European Representation to Berlin which supported the event. Stakeholders from various Federal ministries, public procurement and environmental agencies, local government associations, and trade unions attended the workshop.

The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action explained that Germany is currently developing its Procurement Transformation Package, to support environmental, social, and innovation goals through public contracts. As the document was still under development, the ministry was not able to provide more information. A public consultation was held in 2023 which gathered 450 responses, and these insights fed into the draft document.  

When discussing the current public procurement landscape in Germany, the participants noted that while progress has been made in the areas of green and socially responsible public procurement, there is still room for improvement in the areas of circular and innovation procurement. 

The participants were divided into the following breakout groups: technical, organisational, and legal challenges to public procurement. During the workshop, several key challenges, and recommendations including streamlining and simplifying procurement rules, standardising criteria for certain product groups, professionalisation of public buyers, leveraging digital tools and AI, and fostering cross-governmental collaboration were discussed.  

The workshop concluded with the next steps for the preparation of the roadmap in Germany. A follow-up virtual meeting will take place in January 2025, and participants were invited to join the European Commission’s Public Buyers Community to continue discussions and share best practices.

This workshop took place in the context of DG GROW’s Procurement Dialogue Initiative, which  aims to develop a dialogue on the use of strategic public procurement (green, social and innovation) in all 27 EU Member States. The main objectives of the project are to understand the current state of strategic use of public procurement within each of 27 Member States and identify existing barriers and potential solutions, cooperate with local key stakeholders to prepare a roadmap towards the development of strategic public procurement and develop communication paths between the European Commission and Member States regarding strategic procurement.

Find out more about the Procurement Dialogue Initiative here: https://public-buyers-community.ec.europa.eu/communities/public-procurement-dialogues/how-join-public-procurement-dialogues