Public Procurement in Europe

In the European Union over 2,50,000 public authorities spend around 14% of GDP procuring goods, services, and works. Being the biggest spender in the EU allows public organisations to use their procurement to apply leverage to certain policy objectives. Despite the massive impact that public procurement has on the market, economy, public organisations, citizens, and businesses, it has neither been recognised within public administration research as an important policy instrument, nor has it matured into an academic field (yet). This chapter therefore seeks to shed light on public procurement as a key topic within the field of public administration in Europe, by discussing what it is, what distinguishes it from private procurement, and how it evolved as a management function into a policy tool.