The sustainable development in bidding processes in Brazil and the European Union

Abstract

This article intends to investigate how Law nº 14.133/2021 and the European Union Directive EU/2014/24 address the issue of sustainable development with regard to the judgment criteria in bidding procedures, according to the 2030 Agenda plan, prepared by the UN. In this way, through the legal-comparative and legal-sociological aspects, the judgment criterion in the Brazilian legislation will be analyzed based on the examination of the provisions of Law nº 14.133/2021 and the national doctrine. Regarding European community law, this criterion will be studied based on the survey of cases related to the subject in the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the reading of the directives prepared by the European Commission, in addition to the analysis of the EU doctrine itself. In conclusion, this article understands that despite the advances found in the New Bidding Law, Brazil, compared to the European Union, still falls short in implementing sustainable public procurement along the lines proposed in the 2030 Agenda. Due to the normative rigidity and the lack of regulation of article 34, paragraph 1, of Law nº 14.133/2021, the proposal of the best sustainable price cannot yet be implemented, which makes it impossible to actually fulfill the objective of sustainable national development. European Union legislation, on the other hand, is much more consistent in promoting sustainability in public procurement, since it manages to reconcile concerns with public accounts and sustainable development, based on the criterion of the most economically advantageous proposal (Article 67 of Directive 2014/24).