As EU Sectoral Social Partners in private security, CoESS and UNI Europa stress that private security is an essential service for public security and preparedness. Security companies and workers protect critical infrastructure and public spaces, support first responders during emergencies, and play a key role in crisis situations. The quality of these services - and the working conditions of those delivering them - directly affects public security and preparedness across Europe.

Lowest price is undermining security and quality

Despite this reality, public procurement of security services across the EU remains overwhelmingly driven by the lowest price, often ignoring quality, training, working conditions and compliance with labour law and collective agreements. This race to the bottom distorts competition, weakens service quality, and ultimately puts public security and preparedness at risk.

CoESS and UNI Europa therefore argue that the revision of the Public Procurement Directive is a strategic opportunity to correct these failures. Building on the European Commission’s 2025 Evaluation Report and the European Parliament’s 2025 INI Report, the position paper highlights the need to combine simplification and flexibility with strategic, value-based procurement.

Four concrete proposals

The joint position paper puts forward practical and targeted proposals to make public procurement more efficient, fair and resilient:

• Simplification and transparency through the creation of an EU-wide eProcurement platform, reducing administrative burden and improving access for SMEs.
• Fair competition by making compliance with applicable law and collective agreements (where they exist) a mandatory selection criterion.
• Best-value procurement in security services through a clear requirement to prioritise quality over price, including a minimum 60/40 weighting in favour of quality criteria.
• Contract sustainability via mandatory and transparent price-revision clauses in multi-year contracts, reflecting changes in labour law, collective agreements and high inflation.

Together, these measures would provide legal certainty for public authorities, strengthen competition based on quality rather than cost-cutting, and ensure continuity of essential services.

Broad cross-sector support

The call for reform is not limited to private security. EU Sectoral Social Partners from other service sectors, including contract catering and cleaning, have joined CoESS and UNI Europa in a cross-sector statement. Across sectors, Social Partners agree that simpler rules and best-value procurement are essential to protect service quality, workers, and the public interest.

Towards procurement that serves citizens

CoESS and UNI Europa conclude that public procurement must no longer reward the cheapest offer at the expense of quality, security and resilience. Instead, EU rules should enable contracting authorities to use public spending strategically - to support quality jobs, innovation, fair competition and the safe delivery of essential services for European citizens.

The full Joint Statement can be found here.