Unleashing Social Justice through EU Public Procurement

The dramatic results of the 2014 European Parliament elections have highlighted the European Union's urgent need for a review of the scope and purpose of its social objectives and for a reordering of European priorities. This book advocates a radical and original alternative to the current philosophy that determines the set of rules for the awarding of EU public procurement contracts. It calls for a reordering of the EU's economic and social priorities. In doing so, it advocates for a social dimension to be placed at the core of public procurement, which could elicit a social model of integration in the EU in which the European citizen is the key actor. This is achieved through an analytical approach as well as concise and contextualised explanations relating to free trade theories, poverty and public interest theories. This book will be of key interest to students and scholars of the European Union, political theory, and EU law.

Antoinette Calleja is Director, International Affairs and Policy Development with the Ministry for Health, Malta.

PART 1: THE STATUS QUO 1 Introduction 2 European integration and the interplay with public procurement 3 The effectiveness of EU public procurement 4 Free Trade: What about it - Myths or Realities? 5 Poverty and Natural Law Theory within Context PART 2: CLOSING THE GAP 6 On the Mission of Serving the Public: Services of General Interest and Community Law 7 Public Procurement as the EU's Safety Valve PART 3: THE SOLUTION 8 On Public-Private Partnerships: For a European Theory of a Social Just Alternative 9 Conclusions