On the 27th of June 2019, University of Patras, the Lead partner, held the 5th stakeholder group meeting of the GPP4Growth project.
The meeting commenced with the welcome address from Professor Christos Bouras, professor in the Computer Engineering & Informatics Department and scientific coordinator of UPAT for GPP4Growth project who also made a brief presentation of the project outcomes in the past year.
Afterwards, Thomas Stavropoulos, PhD Lawyer in Public Law by the University of Athens and visiting Fellow of the Harvard University, stood on the podium and spoke about special legal issues of audit of bids in public contracts. Mr. Stavropoulos explained in detail the recent changes in the legal framework in public procurement as a result of the new law on PP passed in Greece (Ν. 4412/2016) and discussed whether things moved to the right direction or not.
Next, Mrs. Maria Diamantopoulou, head of the financial and fiscal control department of Region of Western Greece (UPAT’s policy instrument for GPP4Growth) gave a speech concerning the challenges that have been identified in applying GPP. She presented general issues, but also issues that rise in the context of Greek framework and local framework. The second part of her presentation was about possible solutions to these challenges and how they could be adopted by the public authorities.
The final speech was given by Georgios Diles, postdoctoral researcher and part of the GPP4Growth project team. The main focus of his presentation was proposals for specific actions that could be included in the UPAT policy instrument AP. There were 7 proposals in the presentation that will be the official proposal to the policy instrument so that the policy instrument will comment on which are most preferred and most likely to be implemented and that will be included in the final AP that will be developed in the next months.
An open discussion followed, coordinated by Professor Ch. Bouras. Much of the discussion revolved around the proposals of the AP. A participant mentioned some market difficulties and that the suppliers must be involved in the process of establishing green criteria. A participant mentioned the need for gradual incorporation of these criteria. Mr. Stavropoulos as a lawyer mentioned that many green criteria may cause legal challenges. A participant mentioned several Greek industries and how green criteria should be chosen in a way to boost the production of green products and services by these particular local industries.
