Latvia

1. Policy

The Latvian Public Procurement Law includes the following RBC objectives:

Environment

Human rights

Labour rights

People with disabilities

Long-term unemployed people

Minority considerations

Integrity

Other policy frameworks

• Environmental considerations

  • The Regulations of the Cabinet of Ministers № 353, № 180 and № 106, adopted in 2017, include several sustainable policy objectives and specific sustainability requirements.

  • Every year, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development submits reports on green public procurement targets to the Cabinet of Ministers. The targets were set by the Green Public Procurement Support Plan 2015-2017. Originally spanning the period 2015-2017, reporting on the indicators outlined in the plan has continued.

• Integrity

  • Two general frameworks apply in the area of public procurement: the Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau Guidelines 2015-2020 and the Law on Prevention of Conflict of Interest in Activities of Public Officials.

  • Secondly, there is a specific framework in form of the Operational Strategy of the Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau 2018-2019.

2. Implementation

Pre-tender phase

• Environmental considerations must be taken into account from the beginning of the procurement process, aiming to prevent or reduce potential environmental and human risks.

• In the field of measures targeting certain groups of people, the Latvian contracting authorities have the right to reserve the possibility of participating in the tendering procedure only for those candidates where more than 30% employees are disabled.

Tender phase

• According to the Regulation of the Cabinet of Ministers №. 353, certain green criteria need to be observed when procuring specific types of goods. For instance, contracting authorities must consider environmental and human health aspects of the procurement, the environmental impact of a product, and conduct a comparison of environmental impacts (magnitude, reversibility or geographical scale).

• Contracting authorities are also entitled to exclude economic operators that have committed criminal acts, such as human trafficking, bribery, fraud, misappropriation or money laundering and evasion of tax payments or equivalent payments.

Post-tender phase

• Latvian contracting authorities may require special conditions for the performance of a contract, in particular requirements concerning economic and social circumstances, innovation or environmental protection.

3. Good Practices

• The Latvian social entrepreneurship association organises conferences to introduce contracting authorities to public procurement regulations. These conferences aim to educate contracting authorities on socially responsible procurement.