The Court of Justice of the EU has further completed its views on the use of criteria linked to sustainable development. These are criteria which do not simply refer to environmental characteristics of the product itself. Rather, they convey a message as to the overall ‘process and production methods’, known in jargon as ‘PPMs’, of a particular product or service.
In Max Havelaar, Case C-368/10, the Court had to decide on the use of specific labels in decisions awarding government purchases (‘procurement’) to a particular supplier.The province of North Holland had
– inserted in the technical specifications a condition requiring the Max Havelaar and EKO labels or in any event labels based on similar or the same criteria;
– included, for appraising the ability of operators, criteria and evidence concerning sustainable purchasing and socially responsible business, and
– included, when formulating award criteria, a reference to the Max Havelaar and/or EKO labels, or in any event labels based on the same criteria.
The judgment is quite complex for those unfamiliar with (EU) procurement law In particular, the Court distinguishes in the exact room for manoeuvre between various stages of a procurement decision. Leaving detailed breakdown aside (reference is made to the judgment), the Court’s finding is basically that authorities must make use of descriptive conditions for such criteria, rather than solely referring to specific labels. However they may identify certain labels as leading to a presumption of these criteria having been met, provided of course they allow other proof to be submitted.
For WTO lawyers, judgments like these are not irrelevant. Arguably, adoption of private labels in procurement decisions, may well bring these labels within WTO, in particular, TBT (Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade), discipline.
Geert.
