Working with procurement in an EU environment is nothing new for Peter Carlberg, who since 2019 has been purchasing manager at the European Infection Control Agency (ECDC) in Solna. It was established in 2005 and is the only one of the Union’s authorities that is located in Sweden.
Before that, he worked at Europol (police cooperation) and Eurojus (criminal justice cooperation) for nearly ten years. Both authorities are located in The Hague.
Being able to change the Netherlands for Sweden and still be able to continue working for the EU, he sees as a great benefit.
– I enjoy being in an international environment, but it was the right timing to move home with my family. The children were 10 and 12 years old at the time, he says.
Of the 350 employees at ECDC, who are all citizens of an EU country, around 25 percent are Swedes.
In the purchasing section, 12 people work from, among others, France, Greece and Hungary under the leadership of Peter Carlberg.
The working language is English and the group includes, among other things, five procurers, two procurement coordinators and four procurement specialists who together handle the authority’s procurements.
ECDC and other EU authorities are not bound by the Procurement Directive, which may sound contradictory. Instead, they have a “shadow regulatory framework” that is similar but not identical.
– Our threshold values are roughly the same. But our rules are more burdened with formalities and can be perceived as more bureaucratic, which unfortunately means that we receive fewer tenders. A tenderer who wishes to reconsider may apply directly to the European Court of Justice. It is expensive and takes a long time and has never happened to us in my five years here.
ECDC’s task is to track and keep an eye on around 60 infectious diseases. They do not work directly against citizens but against national infection control authorities.
– This is why not many people have heard of ECDC.
Barely a year after Peter Carlberg had started at the authority, the world was hit by Covid-19.
– The pandemic showed how important it is with cooperation across borders. We had to change operations when the need for our support increased. Many agreements also had to be changed when the consultants could no longer sit with us.
Peter Carlberg is a trained lawyer and worked, among other things, at the Swedish Competition Authority and the then Swedish Agency for Higher Education Services, VHS, before his career abroad.
– It was at VHS that I got involved in procurement, as we, among other things, took care of government framework agreements. At the time, I had no idea that you would work in procurement abroad.
So it was almost ten years in the Netherlands.
– It is similar to Sweden in many ways but at the same time different. For example, I may miss going around and shopping for food in various small shops, one for bread, one for meat, one for cheese and so on.
However, he still has the advantage of paying the lower tax for EU employees, even though he works in Sweden.
– I am covered neither by Swedish labor law nor tax regulations, he states.
FACTS/European Infection Protection Authority
The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, ECDC, is tasked with increasing the capacity of the EU and the Member States to protect human health through the prevention and control of infectious diseases in humans. The cooperation between the European Commission, ECDC and the EU’s member states can be compared to the conditions in Sweden between the National Board of Health and Welfare, the Public Health Agency and the regions. Source: Wikipedia
