Návrh nařízení o veřejných zakázkách a koncesíchCOM(2026) 590

EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM

1. CONTEXTOFTHEPROPOSAL

• Reasons for and objectives of the proposal

This explanatory memorandum accompanies the proposal for a Regulation on Public Procurement, revising the Directive 2014/23/EU on the award of concession contracts, Directive 2014/24/EU on public procurement and Directive 2014/25/EU on procurement by entities operating in the water, energy, transport, and postal services sectors and amending various sectoral acts with regard to provisions on public procurement therein.

Every day, across the European Union, public authorities award contracts for goods, services and works that shape the daily lives of citizens, whether it be the roads they travel on, the energy that powers their homes or the school buildings that shape their childrens’ futures. With public procurement accounting for around 15% of the EU's GDP, public procurement is a powerful policy lever at the Union's disposal. For public buyers, it is the means to ensure efficient investments into public infrastructure and services. For citizens, it maximises value for taxpayers’ money by ensuring that public funds are spent efficiently and effectively. For businesses, a well-designed procurement framework opens new opportunities, including across borders. For all, public procurement should be transparent, fair and open, to build and reinforce public trust.

The central role of public procurement has been forcefully underlined by Mario Draghi and Enrico Letta in their reports on the future of European competitiveness¹ and on the Single Market². Both highlight procurement not only as a mechanism for public spending, but also as a strategic investment tool to strengthen the Union’s clean industrial base, support innovation, advance the clean and digital transitions, and reinforce economic security and strategic autonomy. The Clean Industrial Deal³ and the Competitiveness Compass⁴ have similarly emphasised the responsibility of public buyers in translating strategic orientations into concrete purchasing decisions. In a geopolitical context marked by intensifying competition, supply-chain vulnerabilities and the exploitation of economic dependencies, the way public buyers spend money has become a matter of strategic relevance.

The European Court of Auditors⁵ highlighted a number of shortcomings of the European procurement practice. It found that competition for public contracts had decreased over the past decade, that the participation of SMEs and cross-border bidders remained limited, and that single-bid procedures had become increasingly common. It is against this background that the Council, in its Conclusions of May 2024⁶, invited the Commission to bring forward a comprehensive action plan to address the shortcomings in public procurement legislation and practice and to simplify the regulatory framework. The European Parliament adopted a resolution on public procurement⁷ calling for a more strategic, simplified and competitive framework. The Committee of the Regions⁸ and the European Economic and Social Committee⁹ adopted opinions underlining the importance of public procurement as a driver of local development, social progress and industrial resilience.

The European Commission's in-depth evaluation of the 2014 Directives confirmed that today’s public procurement rules know significant shortcomings. It found that their complexity and lack of flexibility creates significant legal uncertainty for both public buyers and economic operators. Price-only awards remain prevalent and the uptake of social, environmental and innovation requirements continue to be limited. Rules on market access for non-EU companies lack clarity and no longer respond effectively to today's geopolitical realities. Fragmented eProcurement systems prevent proper transparency and efficient monitoring and oversight and despite improvements in transparency, data gaps and quality issues at both EU and national level hamper effective governance, strategic decision-making and the prevention of corruption.

The proposal for a Public Procurement Act seeks to address these challenges.

Simplifying and increasing the flexibility and coherence of procurement rules

The proposal replaces the three 2014 Directives with a single, directly applicable Regulation. Consolidating the rules applicable to public contracts, utilities procurement and concessions into a single legal instrument removes the complexity and inconsistency resulting from the coexistence of separate legislative acts and divergent national transposition choices.

• Two new main procedures are proposed, both possible with or without selection

criteria, and with or without negotiations: an open procedure where economic operators submit (first) tenders from the outset, and a dynamic procedure in which economic operators first join and are later on invited to tender or negotiate for individual procurement opportunities arising during the validity of the procedure. These two procedures are complemented by an innovation procedure for the development and acquisition of innovative solutions that the public buyers wishes to have developed by an economic operator to best meet its needs.

• Market consultations are clarified and encouraged as a standard preparatory tool.

• Selection criteria are limited to what is necessary and proportionate, excessive

turnover requirements are curtailed, and unjustified demands for prior public-sector experience are restricted.

Procurement rules continue to apply to entities in water, energy, transport and postal services. In addition to specific exemptions, utilities may also be exempt where the relevant activity is directly exposed to competition on markets with unrestricted access.

To further simplify the overall legislative framework, the rules on concessions are incorporated in this Regulation. The revised procedural rules will apply both to public contracts and concessions, complemented by adapted rules for concessions where needed to take account of certain specific characteristics of concessions.

Increasing the uptake of strategic procurement

This Regulation establishes a coherent architecture for integrating strategic policy objectives into procurement design, award and contract performance. The proposal reinforces the quality dimension of award decisions. Contracts will as a rule be awarded on the basis of the best price-quality ratio, with minimum quality weighting requirements, including higher weighting for labour-intensive contracts.

• On environmental procurement, the proposal provides clearer legal bases for the use

of environmental requirements throughout the procurement cycle. It strengthens the contribution of procurement to circularity, recycled and refurbished content, waste recovery and energy efficiency, and creates a framework for mandatory green procurement requirements for certain product categories where divergent application of requirement risks creating market fragmentation.

• On socially responsible procurement, the proposal highlights a number of important

societal objectives, including social inclusion, labour market integration, accessibility for persons with disabilities, improved working conditions, up-skilling and re-skilling of the workforce, gender equality and human rights in supply chains. It emphasises accessibility obligations for persons with disabilities and preserves targeted instruments such as reserved contracts and tailored rules for social, health and educational services.

• On innovation procurement, the new innovation procedure allows public buyers to

formulate societal challenges rather than fixed technical specifications, assess proposals through a value assessment framework, test and validate approaches, and then procure the resulting solutions.

Improving EU economic security and strategic autonomy

The proposal responds to the growing geopolitical significance of public procurement.

• Public buyers are enabled, and in certain contexts required, to address risks related to

security and public safety interests of the Union or Member States, linked to critical infrastructure, sensitive information, cybersecurity, harmful critical dependencies, supply disruption, and undue third-country influence.

• Without prejudice to acts covering specific products or services, new provisions on

resilience and security of supply apply in particular to contracts involving essential or important entities and critical infrastructures.

• The proposal also modernises and clarifies the treatment of third-country participation,

in full respect of the Union’s international commitments:

• It clarifies the distinction between operators, and works, services or supplies that are

covered by the Union's international procurement commitments and those that are not and establishes a common framework, supported by a Commission online tool (the Access2Markets web portal developed by the European Commission to assist businesses with international trade), to determine coverage. The Commission may restrict such coverage where a market access analysis establishes that a third country has failed to provide national treatment to Union operators contrary to its commitments, or where restriction is necessary to protect essential Union interests.

• Public buyers may apply European preference requirements, including by

restricting participation, requiring minimum Union or covered origin, or granting evaluation preferences. Where the Union's strategic interests so require, the Commission may close specific procedures to non-covered operators, products or services.

This Regulation serves as a horizontal framework for European preference requirements and has been designed so as not to conflict with the body of Union legislation which are sector-specific, and which establish mechanisms for preference or restriction based on the origin of economic operators or the specific goods or services offered in the context of public procurement. This applies to rules that have already been adopted, such as Regulation (EU) 2024/2803 on the implementation of the Single European Sky, or more recent proposals such as the Industrial Accelerator Act (COM 2026/0068) which are currently in the legislative process. Therefore, the general rules of this Regulation apply unless the sector-specific act provides otherwise, including regarding the determination of origin.

Moreover, in order to avoid excessive fragmentation of the legislative framework and to ensure a coherent set of rules on public procurement, this Regulation also serves as a model and a basis for future Union legislative acts establishing preference mechanisms based on origin. This concerns compatibility with international agreements that include a public procurement dimension, the way in which the origin of economic operators, goods, services and works is defined. Any future European preference rules relating to public procurement should be based as a starting point on the rules regarding the actual preference requirements set out in this Regulation, and only adapted where necessary on account of the specific sectors they will cover.

Facilitating access to procurement information, data and digital tools

The evaluation of the current Directives found that the digital ecosystem for procurement remains fragmented, non-interoperable and insufficiently data driven. The proposal addresses this through a substantially more integrated approach.

• It establishes a common digital ecosystem based on an interoperability network,

harmonised semantic standards and common specifications, enabling public buyers and economic operators using different eProcurement systems to communicate through interoperable digital services. A key innovation is the creation of an electronic eligibility service built around digital business credentials and digital company profiles, implementing the once-only principle.

• The proposal establishes National Public Procurement Data Spaces and a Union-

level Public Procurement Data Space, designed to support structured access to procurement and contract lifecycle data. Publication obligations are expanded and rationalised across the full procurement lifecycle.

The effective operation of the system will require an update of the Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV), established under Regulation (EC) No 213/2008.

Governance

The proposal strengthens governance, monitoring and professionalisation. Integrity governance is reinforced through measures addressing fraud, collusion, corruption, favouritism and conflicts of interest, ensuring that the simplification and strategic ambitions of this Regulation are matched by stronger implementation capacity on the ground.

• Consistency with existing policy provisions in the policy area

The Commission’s evaluation highlights the concerns regarding the fragmentation of public procurement rules within the EU legal framework. Contracting authorities and economic operators must currently comply with a multitude of overlapping and, in some cases, incoherent provisions across more than fifty sector-specific legal instruments. This a source of legal uncertainty, disproportionate administrative burdens, and procedural inefficiencies in the conduct of public procurement for both.

The Commission’s Communication ‘A Simpler, Clearer and Better Enforced EU Rulebook’¹⁰ mandates a ‘regulatory deep cleaning’ of public procurement rules to eliminate redundancies, streamline procedures, and enhance legal clarity. The proposed Public Procurement Regulation therefore undertakes a comprehensive coherence exercise, focusing on consolidating into the Public Procurement Act sectoral rules relating to public procurement procedural rules, horizontal requirements, and empowerment provisions, fully preserving the policy objectives of sectoral acts.

Exclusion grounds

Currently, grounds for exclusion from the participation in a procurement procedure of economic operators are fragmented across several sectoral acts, creating legal uncertainty and unequal treatment. The proposal consolidates these rules into a single, coherent framework by rationalising existing grounds for exclusion from the participation in a procurement procedure as follows:

• 7 mandatory exclusion grounds from sectoral acts based on Title V of the TFEU that

are linked to serious criminal offences, including human trafficking, corruption, and terrorism, and are intrinsic and inseparable elements of the acts in which they are laid down, are maintained in those acts, but mirrored as well in this Regulation.

• 2 exclusion grounds originating from legal acts based on other legal bases are

removed from those acts and reflected in this Regulation. This concerns the exclusion grounds so far enshrined the Shipments of Waste Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2024/1157), and the Eco-Design Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2024/1781), which are deleted from these acts. Rather than disappearing entirely, however, breaches of these instruments are absorbed into existing exclusion grounds in this Regulation.

Horizontal requirements

In addition to procedural rules, the current public procurement framework is further complicated by the multiplication of horizontal requirements in legislation on procurement decisions. To address this, the present proposal transfers relevant horizontal ‘what to buy’ provisions into dedicated chapters of the Act, structured around the Union’s strategic procurement priorities (green, social, security, and resilience), streamlining where needed to ensure consistency in the application of these requirements.

Empowerments

Finally, five sectoral instruments contain separate and uncoordinated empowerments for establishing green public procurement requirements in certain areas. To remedy these inefficiencies, the present proposal repeals those sectoral empowerments for the adoption of procurement-related delegated or implementing acts, and replaces them with a single, horizontal empowerment allowing the Commission to make certain environmental requirements mandatory for public buyers under certain circumstances.

This proposal includes targeted amendments to the sectoral instruments concerned which are strictly necessary to achieve the proposal's objective of legal coherence. Further possible modifications of those sectoral instruments are entirely outside the scope of the present proposal. The need for any such modifications may be assessed, as appropriate, in the context of the review of each of the sectoral instruments concerned, in accordance with their respective review clauses and policy cycles. The Commission will constructively engage with the co-legislators to ensure that the legislative process on the present proposal fully preserves its essential object.

Beyond the existing acquis, several legislative initiatives currently under negotiation or pending publication also contain, or are expected to contain, public procurement-related provisions. This is the case, for example, of the proposal for a Cyber Security Act 2.0 (COM 2026/001), the proposal for a Cloud and AI Development Act (COM 2026/0138), the proposal for an Industrial Accelerator Act (2026/0068) and the proposal for a Chips Act 2.0 (COM 2026/0139). The coherence exercise carried out by the present proposal can only deliver its full added value if these ongoing initiatives are themselves aligned with the horizontal framework established by the Public Procurement Regulation, while maintaining sector-specific rules on What to buy in those acts The Commission has worked to ensure such coherence internally when preparing these texts and it is essential that the co-legislators also take into consideration the need for coherence and consistency with the Public Procurement Regulation. Particular attention should be paid to provisions relating to European preference requirements as divergent sectoral approaches would be especially detrimental to legal certainty, equal treatment of economic operators and proper functioning of the internal market. The Commission will engage constructively with the European Parliament and the Council throughout the negotiations of these parallel files.

• Consistency with other Union policies

The proposed Regulation also interacts with a distinct category of Union policies, which use public procurement as a tool to pursue specific objectives without, however, relying on or modifying the horizontal procurement framework. They establish autonomous regimes that operate alongside the general rules and respond to their own policy rationale.

The proposal does not interfere with the procurement regimes established in the defence and security sectors, which fall outside its scope and under Directive 2009/81/EC. It is without prejudice to Regulation (EU) 2025/1106 (SAFE) and Regulation (EU) 2023/2418 (EDIRPA) on cooperative defence procurement and leaves unaffected the joint procurement mechanisms under Regulation (EU) 2022/2371 and Council Regulation (EU) 2022/2372 on health crises. It is similarly consistent with the resilience-oriented obligations of Regulation (EU) 2024/2747 (IMERA).

Public procurement is increasingly used as a lever to defend the Union's strategic interests in its external economic relations and to ensure a level playing field for European economic operators. The European preference measures are fully compatible with the international framework to which the Union is a party, in particular the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA). The proposal operates without prejudice to Union trade policy instruments containing procurement-specific provisions, notably Regulation (EU) 2022/2560 on foreign subsidies, as well as measures under the Union's trade defence and restrictive measures toolbox, such as Regulation (EU) 2023/2675 (Anti-Coercion Instrument) and Council Regulation (EU) No 833/2014 concerning Russia. Regarding Regulation (EU) 2022/1031 on the International Procurement Instrument, Chapter 5 of the proposed Regulation explicitly incorporates, including through cross-references, the principles and concepts of this Regulation concerning the origin of economic operators and goods.

In parallel to this Regulation, the Commission is proposing a European Innovation Act which proposes a specific regime for the procurement of research and development services, meaning the procurement of fundamental research, industrial research and experimental development up to original development. Research and development service contracts, including pre-commercial procurement are thus excluded from the scope of this Regulation. Contrary to the specific regime proposed in the European Innovation Act, the Public Procurement Act also covers the purchase of the commercial end-product.

2. LEGALBASIS,SUBSIDIARITYANDPROPORTIONALITY

• Legal basis

Article 114 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (“the Treaty”) is the appropriate legal basis for this initiative, as its primary objective is to establish a simpler and more efficient harmonised public procurement framework across the Member States, thereby improving the functioning of the internal market in line with Article 26 of the Treaty. While the initiative also touches upon matters related to the objectives pursued under Articles 173 and 207 TFEU, these aspects are clearly ancillary to its primary aim of harmonising public procurement rules and therefore do not justify reliance on those provisions as legal bases.

• Subsidiarity (for non-exclusive competence)

Under Article 5 TEU, the principle of subsidiarity is respected as it balances contracting authorities’ discretion with harmonisation measures and elements necessary to achieve the objectives of this initiative, which cannot be sufficiently achieved by Member States alone.

Public procurement is a key component of the EU single market, enabling cross-border competition and broader access to markets for contracting authorities. However, fragmentation in implementation undermines its effectiveness as an internal market instrument. This calls for further EU-level action to ensure coherence and simplification and to fully unlock the potential of an EU-wide procurement market for businesses and contracting authorities alike.

In line with recent CJEU rulings¹¹, the treatment of third-country economic operators in public procurement falls within the common commercial policy, an exclusive competence of the Union, and can therefore be regulated only at EU level. Only the Union, and not the Member States acting individually, is competent to establish a coherent and uniform framework governing the participation of third-country bidders. Action at EU level is therefore both justified and necessary to ensure legal certainty and a level playing field across the internal market.

• Proportionality

The proposed revision respects the principle of proportionality, as set out in Article 5 TEU and follows what is adapted and necessary to achieve the objectives of ensuring a more efficient, transparent and coherent EU public procurement framework, completing the Union’s strategic objectives.

The establishment of the EU digital ecosystem is necessary to reduce fragmentation, administrative burden and costs by mandating the interconnection of Member States’ eProcurement systems into a single integrated EU public procurement marketplace, thereby also reducing compliance costs and facilitating cross-border participation and enhancing overall market efficiency.

The European preference provisions in sector-specific acts are necessary to respond to the new geopolitical imperatives, while fully respecting the Union’s international commitments. They are designed in a proportionate manner so as not to impose disproportionate financial burdens on contracting authorities’ budgets. They aim to limit administrative burden for public buyers, notably through implementation support and the use of digital tools within the procurement marketplace.

Determining at Union level the Best Price-Quality Ratio (“BPQR”) as the standard award method with a “comply or explain” mechanism is necessary to achieve common social, environmental and innovation policy objectives of the Union. While the impact on fraud and irregularity risks depends on administrative capacity, several safeguards reduce such risks, notably the requirement that all quality criteria remain linked to the subject-matter of the contract, limiting potential distortions of competition.

• Choice of the instrument

The proposed regulatory changes address the shortcomings identified in the evaluation of the 2014 Directives by enhancing coherence and legal clarity through the merger of the three Directives into a single Regulation and the streamlining of the procedural architecture. This responds to persistent fragmentation and insufficient harmonisation across several EU instruments, which has increased complexity, legal uncertainty and compliance costs. By establishing a directly applicable Regulation, the framework creates a single set of rules at Union level, improving consistency of application, reducing fragmentation and avoiding divergent national implementation (“gold-plating”), while preserving necessary flexibility. In line with the European Council’s “One Europe, One Market” mandate and the Letta Report’s recommendation, this ensures greater legal certainty and a more level playing field across all Member States.

3. RESULTS OF EX-POST EVALUATIONS, STAKEHOLDER CONSULTATIONSANDIMPACTASSESSMENTS

• Ex-post evaluations/fitness checks of existing legislation

The evaluation aimed to assess the effects between 2016 and 2024 of the 2014 Directives on public procurement. The evaluation provided an evidence-based assessment of the effectiveness, efficiency, coherence and relevance of those Directives, and its findings informed both the drafting process and the accompanying Impact Assessment.

The evaluation established that the objective of creating greater legal clarity and certainty with respect to scope and coverage has not been achieved, and that the remaining objectives have been only partially achieved: namely the simplification, streamlining and increased flexibility of procurement procedures; the use of public procurement to support other policy objectives such as social, environmental and innovation policy; the opening of markets to greater cross-border competition and the facilitation of SME participation; and the strengthening of the governance framework to prevent irregularities. While confirming that all these objectives remain highly relevant today, the evaluation also found that the Directives are not fit for purpose to ensure economic security and to respond to supply chain disruptions and dependencies.

• Stakeholder consultations

In line with the Better Regulation Guidelines, the Commission conducted an ambitious and inclusive consultation process designed to gather reliable evidence from the full range of public procurement actors.

A combined call for evidence and public consultation ran from 3 November 2025 to 26 January 2026, generating 745 and 1 037 responses respectively, from business associations, companies, public authorities, trade unions, NGOs and citizens, overwhelmingly from EU and EEA countries. The open public consultation was structured around three thematic sections: efficiency and transparency, the balance between green, social, innovation and other objectives, and economic security and strategic autonomy.

These public consultations were complemented by dedicated engagement with Member States and experts through the Expert Group on Public Procurement (EXPP), the Expert Group on Electronic Public Procurement (EXEP) and the Stakeholder Expert Group on Public Procurement (SEGPP), as well as targeted hearings with social partners and NGOs. Particular attention was paid to the participation of SMEs, who were consulted specifically through the Network of SME Envoys and a dedicated SME panel gathering 108 responses.

• Collection and use of expertise

The results of these consultations, and in particular of the open public consultation, were carefully taken into consideration in the preparation of the proposal. Respondents broadly agreed on the need to move beyond the lowest-cost paradigm, increase procedural flexibility and reduce administrative burden through full digitalisation, while strong support (exceeding 80% across all EU and EEA respondent groups) was expressed for prioritising European goods and services in strategic sectors, notably through the expansion of non-price criteria and the introduction of "European preference" mechanisms. SMEs identified simplification, digitalisation and improved data availability as key priorities and pointed to the difficulties caused by divergent national implementation. Their input directly informed measures aimed at facilitating SME access.

• Impact assessment

In line with the Better Regulation Guidelines, this proposal is based on an impact assessment that analyses the problem and sub-problems related to revision of the Public Procurement Directives, in a global context of competitiveness challenges. The impact assessment identifies possible policy options to address problem-drivers and assesses their likely impacts. The impact assessment was structured to reflect the open public consultation, the call for evidence, and the various consultations.

The impact assessment initially received a negative opinion from the Regulatory Scrutiny Board on 17 April 2026. The Board cited several shortcomings that had to be addressed, including insufficient analysis of coherence between the intervention and the sectoral acts containing public procurement provisions, and inadequate assessment of the scale of problems related to environmental, social, and innovation objectives. The Regulatory Scrutiny Board also pointed out a need for better specifying and justifying the preferred policy options, particularly regarding how quality would be defined under BPQR procurement, and for better evaluating the costs, benefits, and proportionality of the preferred option, including its effects on competition and prices. Finally, the Board highlighted that the report lacked a thorough assessment of the combined impacts and unintended consequences of the preferred option, notably the risks of simultaneously introducing more negotiations and greater reliance on BPQR principles.

The above-mentioned points were addressed in a revised impact assessment submitted to the Board, which issued a positive opinion with reservations on 8 June 2026. The Board requested to provide further detail on the new open procedure with possible negotiations and on BPQR and its “comply or explain” approach, and more clarity on the cost-benefit analysis. These clarifications were provided.

The impact assessment is built around a set of 4 specific objectives that tackle the problem drivers identified. It sets out two or three policy options for each specific objective (Flexibility [FLX]; Environmental, Social and Innovation [ESI]; Buy European [BEU], and digital marketplace [MPL]).

• FLX – [FLX.1] Maintains the existing procurement architecture while introducing

targeted flexibility, allowing the choice of procedure, permitting material corrections in tenders where they do not alter the procurement's substance, improving guidance on preliminary market consultations, and clarifying concepts such as "crisis" and concession risk. It also aligns rules across directives and cross-references exclusion grounds with sectoral legislation. [FLX.2] is merging the three existing directives into a single act and restructuring procedures into an open procedure with possible negotiation, a dynamic procedure, an innovation procedure, and contracts requiring only publication of public summary of result such as in emergencies. It also integrates exclusion grounds from existing sectorial acts and where possible deletes them from the sectoral acts. It promotes pre-procurement consultations, standardises negotiation phases with stronger transparency safeguards, and strengthens anti-fraud and traceability requirements while removing sectoral duplication.

• ESI – [ESI.1] incentivises quality-based procurement by making the Best Price-

Quality Ratio the default award method under a "comply or explain" logic, with minimum quality weightings. It promotes ecolabels, life cycle costing and performance standards, frames innovation procurement, limits full subcontracting, and clarifies the link between working conditions and the contract subject-matter. [ESI.2] builds on this by integrating relevant horizontal provisions from other Union acts, harmonising definitions and centralising enabling provisions for delegated and implementing acts. [ESI.3] makes the BPQR with minimum quality weights compulsory with no opt-out, introduces binding Member State targets and reporting obligations, makes EU Ecolabel use mandatory where applicable, further restricts subcontracting chains, and integrates sector-specific requirements into the general framework.

• BEU – [BEU.1] would introduce a voluntary European preference by codifying

existing CJEU case law and allowing contracting authorities to restrict participation to EU/EEA and other internationally covered economic operators or goods (GPA and relevant FTAs). It provides practical tools for verifying eligible countries and guidance on rules of origin. [BEU.2] offers a framework for coherent European preference in selected sectors in future acts, through a toolbox of mechanisms to public buyers, while standardising definitions, origin rules and documentation and integrating these tools into the EU digital procurement infrastructure. [BEU.3] makes European preference mandatory by requiring the exclusion of non-EU/EEA or non-covered third-country economic operators, subject only to limited safeguards such as lack of competition or excessive cost.

• MPL – [MPL.1] establishes a decentralised network of interconnected national

eProcurement platforms linked through an EU interoperability layer. It introduces a digital business credential tool for verified company identity and eligibility data, a common procurement eligibility service, and a unified data management framework, strengthening transparency and anti-fraud capabilities through systematic data exchange, risk analysis tools and mandatory reporting. [MPL.2] instead replaces national systems with a single EU-level eProcurement platform for all procedures under the act, fully centralising procurement processes, data management, monitoring and compliance tools at Union level.

On the basis of the data that are available, the proposal is expected to deliver significant net cost savings, principally through the creation of the public procurement digital ecosystem. For economic operators, the new requirements entail recurring costs of EUR 477 million, which are more than offset by recurring savings of EUR 1 billion from the digital ecosystem and other simplifications. For contracting authorities, the new recurring costs amount to EUR 141 million, while the digital ecosystem yields annual savings of EUR 220 million. On a per procedure basis, the average contracting authority saves approximately 4.4 %, whereas the average economic operator saves around 8.9 %. Overall, the proposal therefore results in substantial net savings for both economic operators and contracting authorities.

• Regulatory fitness and simplification

The proposal simplifies the legal framework by replacing the three existing Directives with a single directly applicable Regulation. This reduces fragmentation, removes divergences resulting from national transposition, and provides a more coherent and accessible set of rules for public buyers and economic operators. It also streamlines the procedural framework by reducing the number of procedures and establishing more flexible and operational tools adapted to different purchasing needs.

The proposal is also the product of a comprehensive regulatory deep cleaning exercise. The consolidation into a single reference legislation, this Regulation, of provisions on exclusion grounds, horizontal “what to buy” provisions and empowerments for green public procurement that are currently scattered across sectoral legal acts will greatly simplify the application of these rules in practice and enhance their readability and legal certainty.

Further simplification is achieved through greater use of digital solutions and structured data, including interoperable digital tools, an electronic eligibility service based on the once-only principle, and harmonised publication and data requirements, reducing repetitive administrative formalities and improving efficiency. The proposal also reduces burdens for economic operators, in particular SMEs, by limiting disproportionate selection requirements and facilitating cross-border participation. At the same time, the proposal preserves the core guarantees of transparency, equal treatment, competition and accountability required by Union public procurement law.

• Fundamental rights

The proposal does not impact the Charter of Fundamental Rights

4. BUDGETARYIMPLICATIONS

The proposed initiative is expected to have a total financial implication for seven years of about EUR 163.5 million, including a yearly 2% inflation rate.¹² This budget covers around EUR 142.2 million for operational appropriations and about EUR 21.3 million for human resources. As stated in the LFDS, the annual breakdown foreseen is around EUR 22.0 million in 2028, EUR 22.4 million in 2029, EUR 22.9 million in 2030, EUR 23.3 million in 2031, EUR 23.8 million in 2032, EUR 24.3 million in 2032 and EUR 24.8 million in 2034.

The budget is expected to be financed under the Multiannual Financial Framework 2028-2034. The estimated budgetary impact does not pre-judge the next Multiannual Financial Framework. The source of financing and scope of Union financial commitment in the post-2027 period remain subject to the outcome of interinstitutional negotiations on the MFF 2028-2034 and thereafter shall be determined through the annual budgetary procedure.

5. OTHERELEMENTS

• Implementation plans and monitoring, evaluation and reporting arrangements

To ensure effective implementation, this Regulation provides for a phased approach for those elements that require technical development or institutional adaptation, notably the digital ecosystem including the electronic eligibility service, and the National Public Procurement Data Spaces and Public Procurement Data Space. The Commission will support implementation through delegated and implementing acts, guidance, technical specifications, standardisation work, and, where appropriate, operational tools and digital services.

Member States will be required to designate a national coordinating authority and to put in place the governance arrangements necessary to ensure effective coordination between the authorities and bodies involved in the application of this Regulation. They will also be required to support the professionalisation of procurement, including through national strategies and appropriate support structures, and to ensure that the relevant actors have the capacity to apply the new framework effectively.

This Regulation establishes a reinforced monitoring framework based on structured procurement data. Each Member State will be required to establish or designate a National Public Procurement Data Space as the central national access point for procurement and contract lifecycle data. Those national data spaces will feed into a Union-level Public Procurement Data Space managed by the Commission. This will enable more systematic monitoring of procurement markets, strategic procurement outcomes, competition, cross-border participation, SME access, and risks affecting integrity, resilience and security of supply.

Member States will be required to establish an evidence-based framework to monitor the functioning of their public procurement systems and markets and to make the results of that monitoring publicly available at least once a year. Member States will report to the Commission on the results of those analyses and on measures taken or envisaged to address structural shortcomings where identified.

The Commission will continuously monitor the functioning of public procurement in the Union on the basis of the data available in the Public Procurement Data Space. It will provide, every three years, an analysis of the public procurement system across the Union.

In addition, this Regulation requires the Commission to carry out an evaluation seven years after its entry into force and every seven years thereafter.

• Detailed explanation of the specific provisions of the proposal

Part I sets out the general provisions on subject-matter, scope, in particular the relevant thresholds and the mechanisms for updating them, principles and definitions. This Regulation requires public buyers to treat Union and covered economic operators equally and without discrimination, act transparently and proportionately, and ensure the integrity of public procurement procedures. Public contracts must ensure best quality for money, avoid undue restrictions on competition, and aim at contributing to the achievement of the Union’s broader policy objectives).

Part II defines relevant actors who participate in public procurement. Title I starts by defining the public buyers covered by the rules, then covers utilities, listing the sectors concerned and allowing exemptions where activities are directly exposed to competition and setting out the procedure for requesting an exemption from the Commission. Title II concerns economic operators, including groups, the use of third-party capacities, and subcontracting, with well-calibrated rules framing the use of this instrument to avoid abuses. This title furthermore sets out mandatory exclusion grounds, relating to serious offences such as corruption, fraud, terrorism, trafficking, environmental crime, and child exploitation, and optional exclusion grounds that relate to situations casting doubts on the reliability or integrity of the economic operator concerned. The provisions on selection criteria set out clear rules on the financial, technical and professional capacities of economic operators that public buyers can require, if they wish to use selection criteria in their procurement procedures.

Part III lays down rules on procedures. Title I deals with public procurement procedures and integrates provisions on planning, market consultations, choice of procedures, estimation of the contract value, and the conduct of negotiations, which are allowed in all procedures, with the appropriate safeguards for transparency and non-discrimination. The procedures include the open procedure, the dynamic procedure, the innovation procedure, and contracts requiring only publication of public summary of result such as in emergencies and crises.

Title II deals with the strategic design and execution of public procurement, streamlining the relevant definitions and provisions for taking into account considerations relating to the Union’s broader policy objectives:

• Chapter 1 concerns green public procurement. It includes a definition of green public

procurement and enshrines obligations relating to fostering the circular economy, resource efficiency, energy efficiency, and green public procurement requirements for certain products.

• Chapter 2 covers socially responsible public procurement, including accessibility,

reserved contracts for organisations whose main aim is the social and professional integration of persons with disabilities or disadvantaged persons, and contracts for social, health and educational services.

• Chapter 3 concerns public procurement of innovation. It clarifies innovation objectives

in public procurement, procurement of innovation, and intellectual property rights.

• Chapter 4 deals with security and resilience and clarifies how security considerations

are to be considered in public procurement. It provides a non-exhaustive list of the security and public safety interests to be considered, and it regulates the termination of contracts and the exclusion of operators during contract implementation for security reasons. It also seeks to ensure compliance with cybersecurity requirements and defines resilience and security of supply for critical entities and infrastructures.

• Chapter 5 clarifies the concept of European preference by defining covered economic

operators, goods, services and works: where they originate from a third country party to the WTO Government Procurement Agreement or from a third country that has concluded a bilateral or multilateral trade agreement with the Union. It sets out European preference requirements, including the possibility to restrict or reject certain economic operators and tenders. It also provides a framework for mandatory European preference in sector-specific EU legal acts, while laying down exceptions where public buyers may decide not to apply European preference.

Title III lays down horizontal provisions covering key aspects of the procurement process, including excluded and mixed contracts, among them defence and security contracts, but also various services not subject to procurement disciplines such as legal services, arbitration and conciliation services, employment contracts etc. This Regulation clarifies the important concept of subject-matter link and establishes clear provisions on technical specifications, including the use of standards and labels, and on award criteria, in particular the use of quality criteria through the BPQR. Title III further regulates other aspects of the conduct of procedures, including confidentiality, conflicts of interest, prior involvement of operators, deadlines, procurement documents, division into lots, abnormally low tenders, corrections and cancellations, and framework agreements. Finally, it addresses contract execution, including modification and termination of contracts, adjustment mechanisms, payments, and publication and documentation requirements.

Part IV regulates concessions, specifies exclusions, and lays down rules on preparation, design, and award procedures, including structured risk assessment. It also covers concession duration and contract management (such as modifications and termination).

Part V defines the framework for the digital ecosystem sustaining the implementation of this regulation. It creates interoperability rules for a secure public procurement data-exchange network. This enables electronic communication between public buyers and economic operators through different eProcurement service providers. It also sets obligations for the Commission to help providers with the eligibility check (exclusion grounds, selection criteria, requirements of origin).

Part VI covers transparency and governance. The rules on data spaces (Title I) regulate the setting up and functions of national public procurement data spaces on the one hand, and on the other hand of the Public Procurement Data Space established by the Commission, a central repository of procurement information originating from all NPPDS for the monitoring of public procurement procedures and contracts at Union level. Title II sets out different governance tools and mechanisms allowing for regular monitoring of the procurement system to assess performance and support improvements; this includes the designation of a national coordinating authority to oversee and coordinate implementation; and appropriate measures to strengthen the professionalisation of public procurement as long term and strategic elements of public governance.

Part VII sets final provisions, determining the exercise of delegation and giving power to the Commission to adopt delegated acts. This Regulation repeals Directives 2014/23/EU, Directive 2014/24/EU, Directive 2014/25/EU, and amends the horizontal public procurement provisions included in Regulation (EU) 2014/1781, Regulation (EU) 2024/1735, Regulation

(EU) 2023/1542, Regulation (EU) 2024/3110, Regulation (EU) 2025/40, Directive 2023/1791, Directive 2008/98/EC, Regulation (EU) 2024/1252, Directive 2019/882, Directive 2022/2381, Regulation (EU) 2024/2847, Directive (EU) 2024/1760, Regulation (EU) 2024/1157; it also amends Regulation 1370/2007. Finally, it sets a review target seven years after adoption and a deferred entry into application of two years.

2026/0265 (COD)

Proposal for a

REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL

on public contracts and concessions, repealing Directives 2014/23/EU, 2014/24/EU and

2014/25/EU, and amending Regulations (EC) No 1370/2007, (EU) 2023/1542, (EU) 2024/1157, (EU) 2024/1252, (EU) 2024/1735, (EU) 2024/1781, (EU) 2024/2847, (EU)

2024/3110 and (EU) 2025/40, and Directives 2008/98/EC, (EU) 2019/882, (EU) 2022/2381,

(EU) 2023/1791 and (EU) 2024/1760 (Public Procurement Act)

(Text with EEA relevance)

1. https://commission.europa.eu/topics/competitiveness/draghi-report_en.

2. consilium.europa.eu/media/ny3j24sm/much-more-than-a-market-report-by-enrico-letta.pdf.

3. https://commission.europa.eu/topics/competitiveness/clean-industrial-deal_en.

4. https://commission.europa.eu/topics/competitiveness/competitiveness-compass_en.

5. 2023 Special Report on public procurement in the EU https://www.eca.europa.eu/en/publications?ref=SR-2023-28.

6. consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2024/05/24/council-adopts-conclusions-on-the-court-of- auditors-report-on-public-procurement/pdf/.

7. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-10-2025-0174_EN.pdf.

8. https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2863/0379789.

9. https://www.eesc.europa.eu/en/our-work/opinions-information-reports/opinions/review-european- public-procurement-legal-framework.

10. https://commission.europa.eu/publications/simpler-clearer-and-better-enforced-eu-rulebook_en.

11. Case C-652/22, Kolin İnşaat Turizm Sanayi ve Ticaret AŞ v State Commission for the Supervision of Public Procurement Procedures; Case C-266/22, CRRC Qingdao Sifang Co. Ltd and Astra Vagoane Călători SA v Autoritatea pentru Reformă Feroviară and Alstom Ferroviaria SpA.

12. The difference in costs presented in the legislative financial statement and in the impact assessment arises because the legislative financial statement includes all costs, whereas the impact assessment accounts only for the additional costs introduced by the policy measures on top of the so-called business-as-usual costs. There are also slight differences in cost classification and presentation stemming from the requirements of the financial regulation.