Welcome to Better Europe's weekly update on EU Affairs. BUY EUROPEAN WITH OUR TAXPAYER MONEY PLEASE Long overdue, the EU has finally realised that spending taxpayer's money should be in line with our overall European interests, and not just getting the cheapest low-quality products and services. Commissioner Séjourné finally presented his baby this week: a new Public Procurement Act to modernise and simplify public procurement rules, turning 2 trillion euros of annual spending power into a tool for strategic autonomy, resilience, and sustainability, and not just cost-cutting. The core of the plan? Introduce "European preference" criteria for strategic sectors, mandatory quality criteria including optional environmental and social standards, and a push for digitalisation with a single procurement marketplace. But as always, there is a catch: public authorities can ignore the…

Welcome to Better Europe's weekly update on EU Affairs. GOLD IS GEOPOLITICS This week, the Dutch central bank quietly moved 86 tonnes of gold (worth around €10 billion) from the US and Canada to London, as a consequence of “increasing geopolitical unrest”. Even if the UK isn’t even in the EU anymore, physical proximity seems to matter. The Dutch claim they are concerned about access to their gold tout court — they simply want easier access to potential liquidity in times of crisis. The 32% of Dutch Gold now held in London, they argue, can be traded faster as it has overtaken New York as the world’s top foreign gold storage spot. However, that argument didn’t hold when France sold and re-bought 129 tonnes, moving 5% of its reserves from…