German public procurement regulation and its interplay with European regulation and case law
Obedient anticipation, implementation ‘one-to-one’ or testing the waters?
Karen Jaehrling, Institute for Work, Skills and Training, University of Duisburg-Essen
Christin Stiehm, Institute for Work, Skills and Training, University of Duisburg-Essen
The paper analyses if and to what extent it is possible to speak of a ‘paradigm shift’ in German procurement policies as a result of the new EU procurement directives. Preliminary evidence suggests that the adoption of rules and routines that aim to effectively boost job quality in contracted out services is dependent on a number of other factors and trends that are largely disconnected to current EU level rulings and regulations. Next to the willingness of public authorities to actively ‘test the waters’ of EU case law, it is also the trend towards a stronger professionalization of public procurement and a stronger judicialisation of procurement procedures which has (ambiguous) effects here.
