Public purchases in the Balearic Islands must include 10% local and organic products.
The initiative approved by the Governing Council will not apply to all contracts currently in force.
Starting this Saturday, public sector contracts for agricultural or food products will have to include at least 10% local produce and another 10% organic produce. This was approved by the Governing Council this Friday. This initiative will not apply to all current contracts but will be imposed as new bids are placed.
The Executive has launched this initiative with the aim of promoting the consumption of these two types of products, according to Government spokesperson Antoni Costa. In the previous term, the Governing Council signed an agreement establishing guidelines for the inclusion of social, labor, and environmental clauses in government procurement. It set a minimum percentage of 16% for organic and seasonal food, applicable only to supply contracts. According to Costa, this regulation "was impossible to comply with, given that public contracts for food products are generally for services, not supplies." Furthermore, he explained, it did not differentiate between local and non-local products.
To guarantee the presence of local and organic products in regional government contracts, the spokesperson continued, an amendment to the Agrarian Law was included within the Administrative Simplification Law, which specifies that all government tenders for food products must establish a minimum percentage of local and organic products.
Once this change was made, the Governing Council established this Friday the minimum percentages that will govern all regional public sector tenders. In addition, additional measures are established within the contracting procedures, such as the obligation to give higher scores to bids that increase the established minimum percentages of local and organic products.
Furthermore, and in order to guarantee compliance with these percentages, special conditions of execution, control and verification are imposed, whereby the successful bidder companies must submit a detailed report on the agricultural, food and organic products purchased, together with invoices justifying compliance with the established percentages.
