Návrh nariadenia o verejných zákazkách a koncesiáchCOM(2026) 590

THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,

Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, and in particular Article 114 thereof,

Having regard to the proposal from the European Commission,

After transmission of the draft legislative act to the national parliaments,

Having regard to the opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee,

Having regard to the opinion of the Committee of the Regions,

Acting in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure,

Whereas:

(1) The award of public contracts and concessions by or on behalf of Member States’ authorities has to comply with the principles laid down in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (the Treaty), and in particular the free movement of goods, freedom of establishment and the freedom to provide services, as well as the principles deriving therefrom, such as equal treatment, non-discrimination, mutual recognition, proportionality and transparency. For procurement procedures for public contracts and concessions above a certain monetary value, it is necessary to establish harmonised rules for procurement procedures so as to eliminate obstacles to the functioning of the internal market and prevent the emergence of new ones in the form of regulatory divergences between Member States, including as regards the pursuit of strategic policy objectives. The evaluation of the current existing Directives 2014/23/EU¹, 2014/24/EU² and 2014/25/EU³ of the Parliament and the Council 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. This Regulation seeks to address these challenges and is expected to ensure that public procurement is further opened to competition and will at the same time serve as a tool for efficient public investments in line with the EU’s broader policy objectives. Obligations under other Union legislation continue to apply and remain unaffected.

(2) This Regulation is to lay down rules for procurement procedures for public contracts and concessions above certain thresholds. As regards contracts that are not covered by this Regulation, Member States remain free to regulate the award of such contracts subject to ensuring respect of any applicable Union legislation, including Treaty principles in case of cross-border interest. This Regulation establishes procedural rules for awarding the contracts and concessions covered, as well as the procurement related aspects of the planning and the execution of those contracts, sets out how to take into account broader policy objectives and establishes a framework for a common digital ecosystem to be used in their planning, award and implementation of as well as mechanisms and requirements to ensure efficiency and accountability of public purchasing. By contrast, this Regulation should not regulate the overall administrative environment in which those public procurement procedures take place. Hence, national rules on the functioning and organisation of public administration in general, in particular those relating to budgetary and financial controls, and to decision-making structures inside public administration, remain unaffected. National civil law and general rules on contractual relationships, which form part of the broader national legal framework in which the rules laid down in this Regulation will operate, also remain unaffected.

(3) It should be recalled that nothing in this Regulation obliges Member States to contract out or externalise the provision of services that they wish to provide themselves or to organise by means other than public contracts within the meaning of this Regulation. The provision of services based on laws, regulations or employment contracts should not be covered. In some Member States, this might be the case for certain administrative and government services such as executive and legislative services, the provision of certain services to the community, such as foreign affairs services or justice services or compulsory social security services.

(4) This Regulation should not affect the social security legislation of the Member States, nor should it deal with the liberalisation of services of general economic interest, reserved to public or private entities, or with the privatisation of public entities providing services. Member States are free to organise the provision of compulsory social services or of other services either as services of general economic interest or as non-economic services of general interest or as a mixture thereof. Non-economic services of general interest should not fall within the scope of this Regulation.

(5) Council Decision 94/800/EC⁴ approved among other things, the conclusion of the World Trade Organization Agreement on Government Procurement (the ‘GPA’) on behalf of the Union. The GPA establishes a multilateral framework of balanced rights and obligations relating to public contracts with a view to achieving the liberalisation and expansion of world trade. For contracts covered by Annexes 1, 2, 4 and 5 and the General Notes to the Union’s Appendix I to the GPA, as well as by other relevant international agreements by which the Union is bound, public buyers should, in order to comply with the obligations under those agreements apply this Regulation to economic operators of third countries that are Parties to the agreements. All new elements introduced in this Regulation have been designed with a view to ensuring full alignment with the Union’s obligations under the GPA.

(6) The thresholds established by this Regulation should serve to determine the contracts and concessions to which the full set of Union procurement rules applies. Those thresholds should continue to reflect the Union’s international commitments under the GPA, while ensuring legal certainty, and administrative practicability. In order to ensure consistency with the Union’s international obligations under the GPA, the thresholds applicable to public procurement should be aligned with those expressed in Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) as defined by the International Monetary Fund, and therefore should be periodically revised, based on the average value of the euro against SDR. Apart from those periodic mathematical adjustments, the Commission will explore with GPA partners the question of an increase in the thresholds set in the GPA.

(7) In order to ensure the proper functioning of the Union’s internal market in public procurement, public procurement should be guided by the principle of best quality for public money, thereby serving the objective of efficient public spending and investment, and public buyers should treat economic operators that originates from the Union, a third-country that is party to the GPA or a third-party that has concluded a bilateral or multilateral trade agreement with the Union, under the conditions laid down in that agreement, equally and without discrimination, acting in a transparent and proportionate manner. Public buyers should also take appropriate measures to safeguard the integrity, impartiality and fairness of the procurement process, and should not design their procurement to exclude it from the scope of this Regulation or to unduly restrict competition. Respect for these principles is essential to guarantee effective competition, lift and prevent barriers to market access and help ensure efficient public investments.

(8) Public procurement constitutes a key instrument for advancing the Union’s strategic policy objectives. It is necessary to regulate the strategic use of public procurement to avoid that diverging practices by public buyers throughout the Union create obstacles to the internal market. Public procurement procedures should be guided by the Union policy objectives, including strengthening the competitiveness of the internal market, supporting innovation and the clean industrial base, achieving climate and environmental targets, a fair and inclusive society, in particular fair working conditions, including as fostered by social dialogue, and enhancing the Union’s safety, security, resilience and economic security, including through strategic independence. Taking into account the diversity of national systems and respecting the autonomy of social partners, public buyers can use socially responsible public procurement to support high-quality jobs and social fairness, including through acknowledging the role of collective bargaining.

(9) It is appropriate to maintain rules on procurement by entities operating in the utility sectors of water, energy, including gas, understood as natural gas or any other gas, transport and postal services, since national authorities continue to be able to steer the behaviour of those entities and/or the existence of special or exclusive rights. Contracting entities should be exempted from this Regulation when the activities they carry out are directly exposed to competition on markets to which access is not restricted. Whether a given sector, or parts thereof, is directly exposed to competition should be assessed in respect of the specific area in which the activity, or the parts thereof concerned, are carried out. The so-called ‘relevant geographical market’ is either the territory of a Member State or parts of it. The notion of ‘relevant geographical market’ should be based on similar criteria set out in other Union legislation.

(10) Direct exposure to competition should be assessed by the Commission upon request of a Member State or a contracting entity. In order to render easily accessible, the procedure for establishing that this Regulation does not apply to a certain activity, it should be clarified that an exemption decision can already be taken in the preparatory phase before the actual submission of a formal request, in situations where the information already available to the Commission allows it to conclude that the conditions for exempting the activity are met. Furthermore, to facilitate the Commission’s assessment in the formal phase, it is preferable that requests for exemption are accompanied by, or incorporate, a reasoned and substantiated recent position on the competitive situation in the sector concerned, adopted by an independent national authority that is competent in relation to the activity concerned or for the application of competition rules, or both. Where the circumstances which are the basis of an implementing act establishing that this Regulation does not apply to a certain activity substantially change, such implementing act may be modified corrected or revoked.

(11) To enhance access to business opportunities in public procurement and increase competition for the award of contracts, the participation of groups of economic operators should be further facilitated. This is of particular importance for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which often face difficulties in accessing larger procurement opportunities. Therefore, the rules governing economic operators participating jointly in a procurement procedure should be clear and simple, while ensuring that only requirements that are necessary and proportionate for the proper performance of the contract are imposed.

(12) Subcontracting parts of a contract remains a practical and powerful tool of collaboration between economic operators. The rules for subcontracting set out in this Regulation should preserve contractual freedom and facilitate access for SMEs, enabling them to participate effectively in public procurement and related supply chains. Subcontracting the entirety of a contract should however not be allowed under this Regulation, in particular in order to avoid that subcontracting is misused especially in sectors which may be more vulnerable to labour exploitation owing to cost pressures and complex subcontracting chains. To ensure better transparency of subcontracting, public buyers should require tenderers to indicate any intended share of subcontracting and any proposed subcontractors. Where provided for by national law, public buyers should be able to require the main contractor, after award and before performance, to inform them of the tasks to be subcontracted and of the identity of the subcontractors beyond the cases provided for under this Regulation. The rules for subcontracting in this Regulation leave unaffected the existing rules in the field of employment and social protection applicable at Union and national level, in particular as regards the duties, responsibilities and liability of employers throughout the subcontracting chain.

(13) Economic operators should be excluded from participation in procedures where they have been convicted by final judgment for certain serious offences. So-called self-cleaning measures should not be permitted for mandatory exclusions, while for optional exclusions, which are related to the reliability of the economic operators, they should be able to rebut the existence of the exclusion ground, which preserves their rights to be heard, or demonstrate their reliability by means of self-cleaning measures. In that context, due account should be taken of any cooperation with the investigating authorities aimed at clarifying the relevant facts and circumstances. For example, in cases involving violations of competition rules, such cooperation may take the form of participation in a leniency programme or settlement procedure before the Commission or a national competition authority. In particular, the granting of immunity from fines under a leniency programme should, in principle, constitute strong evidence demonstrating the reliability of the economic operator despite the existence of the exclusion ground. Member States should not add other grounds for exclusion based on criteria relating to professional situation of the tenderer.

(14) Selection criteria should remain limited to what is necessary to ensure that the economic operator has the technical, professional, legal and financial capacity to perform the contract, so as to ensure the widest possible access to public procurement, in particular for SMEs. Public buyers should not require prior experience in public contracts as such, unless this is strictly justified by the complexity of the contract or the nature of the subject-matter concerned, and should also avoid excessive financial requirements which can unnecessarily exclude SMEs and newer market entrants from procurement opportunities.

(15) In order to simplify and modernise the verification of the eligibility of economic operators in public procurement procedures, the electronic eligibility service should constitute the principal means of proof for the absence of exclusion grounds, compliance with selection criteria and, where relevant, fulfilment of origin-related requirements. The digital business credential tool used in this context should enable the retrieval of structured evidence from relevant national and Union databases, which should be interconnected to the electronic eligibility service to allow for the use of automated verifications, where possible. Where verifications are based on personal data, national and Union law should include suitable safeguards to mitigate the risks to individuals, including rules on who can access and view the data as well as the limitation of access only to such data as is necessary to access within the scope of this Regulation. Individuals should also have the possibility to review the outcome of the verification before it is provided to the public buyer.

(16) Public buyers should be encouraged to carry out market consultations before launching procurement procedures in order to improve their understanding of available market solutions, of the maturity and structure of supply markets, and of potential strategic or operational constraints.

(17) Negotiations can enable public buyers to improve the quality, efficiency and overall value of the procured solution, especially where the subject-matter requires adaptation to operational needs or the balancing of strategic considerations. The possibility to negotiate solutions with a successive reduction of the number of economic operators in the procedure aims at achieving broad access to competition with the possibility for the public buyer to refine solutions and contractual terms through negotiation where that is conducive to achieving best quality for money. At the same time, it is necessary to clarify that the conduct of negotiations should remain subject to safeguards ensuring equal treatment, proportionality and the protection of commercially sensitive information. Therefore, negotiations should only concern non-essential characteristics of the works, services and supplies to be purchased; and public buyers should clearly indicate all non-negotiable elements which, in turn should include the essential conditions of the contract that are determinative for economic operators’ decision to participate in the procedure.

(18) A new simple and flexible open procedure should be established, which allows any interested economic operator to express interest and submit a tender, and where the use of negotiations and of selection criteria remaining optional for the public buyer. The open procedure should ensure that public buyers can decide not to apply selection criteria where not needed to ensure good procurement outcomes, thereby lifting one of the major burdens for SME participation in public procurement.

(19) A new dynamic procedure should be established to provide public buyers with an easy-to use, quick and agile tool to procure from a pre-constituted supplier base, through reaching out, ahead of the individual contracts to be awarded, to all interested economic operators available to perform the contract throughout its validity. Negotiations and the use of selection criteria should be optional for public buyers, as in the open procedure. Economic operators should be able to express their interest in a simple and straight-forward way, simply by sharing their eligibility profile with the public buyer through the electronic eligibility service. In view of the potentially large number of economic operators interested in dynamic procedures, and in order to ensure administrative efficiency and to guarantee fairness, public buyers should be able, where the number of interested suppliers exceeds a certain level, to invite only a limited number of suppliers. Selection of economic operators invited to tender or to negotiate should take place by means of a random indiscriminate algorithmic determination or, in cases where admission to the procedure in the first place is done on the basis of selection criteria, either without further selection, or on the basis of objective, non-discriminatory criteria indicated in the competition public summary.

(20) Public authorities are increasingly confronted with complex societal challenges that require innovative and collaborative approaches extending beyond traditional procurement practices. Public buyers should be allowed to co-create innovative solutions that address public needs more effectively, through a competitive procedure in which economic operators are invited to develop solutions based on societal challenges identified by the public buyer. The development of those solutions should take place in different phases, including market consultation, selection of innovative solution proposals, testing and validation, and assessment of the proposals, and commercial purchase of the solution which public buyers should be allowed to purchase directly from the same economic operator.

(21) This procedure allows public buyers to purchase a yet-to-be developed solution, covering within the same procedure the research and development of that solution as well as all steps leading up to and including the commercial purchase. The innovation procedure covers the full cycle of innovation procurement, possibly from very early stages of research, the subject-matter of the procurement being the purchase of the yet to-be-developed solution. It is therefore markedly different from R&D services procurement, which include pre-commercial procurement, whose subject-matter is not the purchase of the final solution but of research and development services. Unlike the innovation procedure, R&D services procurement therefore does not include the commercial deployment of the yet to-be developed end product. Research and development services, including pre-commercial procurement, are regulated in the [European Innovation Act], and they should be excluded from the scope of this Regulation to avoid overlaps. This exclusion of research and development service contracts covers research and development service contracts as such and does not extend to the research and development elements that are part of the new innovation procedure.

(22) The award of public contracts without prior competition should remain strictly exceptional and justifiable only where competition is objectively impossible or manifestly inappropriate and where additional flexibility is not used to circumvent the general principles of transparency, equal treatment and sound competition. In situations of emergency, crisis or serious cross-border threats, public buyers may need to procure rapidly in order to ensure continuity of essential services, respond to urgent public needs, or safeguard public health and safety. Public buyers should therefore be allowed to have recourse to a simplified direct procurement mechanism, without prejudice to other Union instruments governing joint procurement or crisis response.

(23) Article 11 of the Treaty requires that environmental protection requirements be integrated into the elaboration and implementation of Union policies and activities. Union policies should therefore be developed with a view to promoting, in particular, the objectives of climate change mitigation and adaptation including emission reductions, the sustainable use and protection of water and marine resources, the transition to a circular economy, pollution prevention and control, and the protection and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystems. Green public procurement should also contribute to the development of lead markets for sustainable bio-based products and solutions, in line with the Bioeconomy Strategy. It is necessary to clarify how public buyers can contribute to such objectives, whilst ensuring that they obtain the best quality for money and any conditions remain linked to the subject-matter of the contract. Horizontal environmental sustainability requirements that have been previously provided for in sectoral legislation, in particular on energy efficiency and the transition to a more circular economy, should be established as requirements for green public procurement in this Regulation, while preserving the core substance of the requirements that have been previously provided for in the sectoral legislation. To reduce administrative burden and facilitate the use of Green Public Procurement, public buyers should be able to use existing environmental requirements and criteria developed at Union level, such as the technical screening criteria set out in Regulation

(EU) 2020/852 or EU Green Public Procurement voluntary criteria developed by the Commission.

(24) In view of the crucial role of resilient food systems in ensuring food security and protecting public health, this Regulation recognises the importance of economic, climate, environmental and social sustainability considerations in the procurement of food. These food-specific considerations may include, to the extent that they are linked to the subject matter of the contract, fairness and transparency in food supply chains, organic production methods, quality schemes, nutritional value and health effects, freshness and seasonality, organisation of food supply chains or animal welfare. This can play an important role in bringing consumers, particularly in settings such as schools and hospitals, closer to sustainable food production. Given its very limited cross-border dimension, procurement of services related to food distribution such as canteen services, catering services, school meal services, restaurant services and meals-on-wheels services is subject to a direct award procedure under which public buyers have wide leeway to take into account and accommodate food-specific considerations.

(25) For certain products or product families, for which Union legislation establishes environmental requirements, and contains empowerments for the Commission to enshrine specific rules for public buyers in this regard, it is appropriate to consolidate these empowerments in this Regulation, which should therefore provide for a horizontal empowerment covering the products in question. Following the logic of the sectoral legislation, this empowerment should allow the Commission to set specific requirements for green public procurement for the products covered where necessary to avoid fragmentation of the internal market and foster the demand for certain products. This empowerment should enable the Commission to adopt delegated acts where necessary to maintain fully the substance of provisions previously enshrined in sectoral legislation, like energy efficiency of tyres.

(26) To facilitate and enable public buyers to take social considerations into account, where relevant to the subject-matter of the contract and in compliance with the principles governing public procurement, this Regulation brings together, in a dedicated social chapter, EU social objectives of a horizontal nature. These objectives include social inclusion, high-quality jobs and decent working conditions, accessibility for persons with disabilities, gender equality and non-discrimination, training, the promotion of the social economy, as referred to in Council Recommendation C/2023/1344⁵, and effective human rights protection in relevant supply chains. It is to be stressed that the Union recognises and promotes the role of the social partners at its level, taking into account the diversity of national systems. Accessibility requirements should continue to be of a mandatory nature for the public procurement of goods, services and works intended for use by natural persons.

(27) By using public purchasing power for the fast market uptake and expansion of innovative solutions, public authorities can help bridge the innovation gap and facilitate the transition from a limited first production for testing and validation to commercialisation. Such an approach can contribute to increased productivity, improve market access for SMEs such as innovative startups and scaleups.

(28) In construction, which accounts for roughly 30 % of the value of public contracts awarded, innovation is supported through the use of Building Information Modelling

(BIM) as a standard approach in public procurement and project delivery. Using open BIM digital technologies reduces project risks and enables more efficient design and construction processes, while continuously increasing impact on sustainability objectives. Accordingly, public buyers should in principle use it for the implementation of high-value contracts.

(29) Security and public safety risks may arise in a wide range of procurement procedures, including outside defence and sensitive security sectors in the strict sense. Public buyers should be aware of, assess and address such risks in the design and conduct of procurement procedures and in performance of contracts.

(30) Public procurement in sectors critical to the functioning of society and the Union economy including energy, transport, health, digital infrastructure, water, food and agriculture and financial market infrastructure, can create or compound strategic vulnerabilities where supply chains are concentrated, opaque, or excessively dependent on a limited number of operators or third-country sources. Where a public contract is intended to be performed by a critical entity, in these sectors, public buyers should, where relevant, include in their public contracts measures relating to security of supply and resilience, without prejudice to applicable sectorial Union legislation.

(31) This Regulation is without prejudice to the application of State aid and competition rules, in particular Articles 101, 102 and 107 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The measures provided for in this Regulation should not be used to restrict or distort competition in a manner contrary to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

(32) The Union has concluded international agreements that provide for access to its public procurement markets to third-country economic operators and goods, services or works, in particular the GPA and a number of free trade agreements with procurement commitments. The existence of market access granted depends on the type of procurement procedure, the nature of the public buyer, the subject-matter of the contract, the applicable thresholds, and the specific carve-outs or horizontal exemptions negotiated in each agreement. To give effect to this graduated and procedure-specific coverage, this Regulation introduces the concepts of 'covered economic operator' and 'covered goods, services or works', which are determined separately for each procurement procedure on the basis of the Union's international commitments applicable to each individual procurement. The Commission should be empowered to adopt delegated acts on this matter, in accordance with the relevant international agreements, where warranted for the reasons laid down in this Regulation. Where candidate countries have concluded an agreement with the Union providing for access to public procurement, economic operators, goods, services and works originating from those countries should be regarded as 'covered economic operators' and 'covered goods, services or works' for the purposes of this Regulation, in accordance with the terms and conditions set out in the relevant agreement. This approach reflects the perspective of enlargement and the gradual integration of candidate countries into the Union's internal market, and is intended to support closer economic integration, encourage regulatory alignment, and strengthen the application of the Union's rules and standards in its immediate neighbourhood.

(33) In line with the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in particular its judgments in Case C-652/22 (Kolin)⁶ and Case C-266/22 (Qingdao)⁷, the rights and principles derived from Union public procurement law do not extend to economic operators, goods, services or works originating in third countries that are not covered by such international commitments. The same principle should apply also to goods, including components of products procured, services or works originating in such countries. Building on this principle, this Regulation enables public buyers to apply European preference requirements, in line with the Union’s international obligations.

(34) The Commission should be empowered to close specific procurements to non-covered economic operators or non-covered goods, services or works on the condition that such closure is in the interest of the Union. The interest of the Union to close certain procurements should be assessed based on an appreciation of all relevant interests taken as a whole, in particular economic, geopolitical and societal interests of the Union, its Member States and its citizens. The relevance of such Union interest is illustrated by sectors such as railways and shipbuilding which, as manufacturing sectors of a dual-use nature, rely on infrastructure, mobile assets and information and communication technology (ICT) and traffic management systems that must be resilient and are critical to military mobility, security, and the Union's strategic autonomy objectives. Their strategic importance has been underlined by recent Union initiatives including the EU Economic Security Strategy, the EU High-Speed Rail Plan, and the EU Maritime Industrial Strategy. The Joint Communication on strengthening EU economic security also emphasised the risks related to involvement of high-risk entities in sensitive sectors and supply chains.

(35) Clear and uniform rules on the determination of origin are necessary to ensure the effective and consistent application of international coverage and European preference provisions across all procurement procedures. This Regulation should therefore establish rules of origin for the application of the European Preference requirements set out herein. Where Union legislation applicable to specific sectors introduces European preference requirements, those rules should prevail as lex specialis. This is the case, in particular, for critical medicinal products, where Article [18(2)] of Regulation (EU) …/… [reference to be added after adoption of c.f. COM(2025)102final] establishes mandatory rules for favouring the suppliers of critical medicinal products and their active substances manufactured in the Union, which exhaustively regulates the application of European preference with regard to the critical medicinal products falling within its scope. At the same time, where the sectoral legislation does not provide the modalities for the application of those requirements, public buyers should rely on the horizontal rules set out in this Regulation.

(36) Certain contracts and the concessions awarded for the provision of public service transport within the scope of Regulation (EC) No 1370/2007⁸ are excluded from the scope of this Regulation. However, the provisions of Chapter 4 on “Security and Resilience” and Chapter 5 on “European Preference” of this Regulation should be applicable to all contracts and concessions subject to Regulation (EC) No 1370/2007 in order to ensure a coherence regarding the application of those provisions to all contracts and concessions whether or not are subject to the provisions of public procurement established by this Regulation. Therefore Regulation (EC) No 1370/2007 should be amended accordingly.

(37) Horizontal rules applicable to all procurement procedures under this Regulation should build on well-known concepts from Directives 2014/23/EU, 2014/24/EU and 2014/25/EU of the Parliament and the Council, and the case-law by the Court of Justice of the European Union, modernising and clarifying them where needed, to better achieve the objectives set out in this Regulation, including in particular the integrity and non-discriminatory competitiveness of the procurement procedure.

(38) The existing exclusions from scope for certain types of contracts awarded by public buyers to legal persons controlled by them or within public-public cooperation arrangements should be maintained. As the contracts referred to in these two exclusions are out of the scope of this Regulation, Member States remain free to enshrine stricter rules or open these contracts to competition in their national law. Cooperation exclusively between local and regional authorities, as it is less likely to entail risks of distorting competition with economic operators, should be excluded from the scope of this Regulation under less stringent conditions. Finally, the existing possibility for contracting entities to rely on established structural links with affiliated undertakings or joint ventures to perform specific activities should also be maintained.

(39) Excessively detailed specifications often contribute to unnecessarily reducing the participation of economic operators and hamper innovation. In order to facilitate competitive procurement markets, the specifications defining the characteristics of the works, supplies or services that are subject of the procurement should, as a general rule be drafted in terms of functional requirements. Variants should be used more in public procurement procedures in view that they can contribute to enhancing competition and fostering innovative and cost-effective solutions. By allowing economic operators to propose alternative approaches, public buyers could benefit from a wider range of tenders better tailored to their needs. Such approach could also benefit SMEs, enabling them to put forward flexible, innovative or more specialised solutions that may differ from standard specifications and better reflect their specific expertise or business models.

(40) In order to ensure non-discriminatory access to procurement it is of crucial importance that any criteria and conditions applied in procurement procedures remain directly or indirectly linked to the subject-matter of the contract, relating to the material substance of the goods, services and works procured, or, without relating to the material substance, directly impacting those goods, services and works. As the notion of subject-matter link has been subject to prejudicial diverging interpretations, the notion should be clarified in this Regulation. Examples of considerations that are linked to the subject-matter of a given contract could include that the manufacturing of the purchased products did not involve toxic chemicals, the purchased services are provided using energy-efficient machines or energy-efficient production methods, the product concerned is of fair-trade origin, including the requirement to pay a minimum price and price premium to producers, fair wages are ensured for workers involved in the execution of the contract in question. The condition of a direct or indirect link to the subject-matter of the contract excludes criteria and conditions relating to general corporate policy.

(41) Labels are valuable means of proof that help public buyers to integrate environmental, social, or other strategic considerations in public procurement. Public buyers that wish to purchase products, services or works with specific environmental, social or other characteristics should be able to refer to particular labels provided that their requirements are linked to the subject-matter of the contract and compliant with certain label quality requirements. When public buyers decide to request an ecolabel, they should request life cycle, third-party verified ecolabel with a high level of ambition and, when EU Ecolabel criteria have been adopted for a product, a service or work, they should require in the first place the EU Ecolabel, which is the official EU voluntary scheme for environmental excellence of goods and services.

(42) To make public spending a more efficient investment tool in line with the Union’s strategic policy objectives, greater emphasis should be placed on long-term public benefit rather than focusing only on the lowest upfront cost. Putting quality at the centre of public purchasing will allow public buyers to acquire works, supplies and services that provide better guarantees for meeting their needs in a longer term perspective, at the same time serving overall societal objectives. Therefore, public contracts should, as a general rule, be awarded on the basis of the best price-quality ratio, allowing public buyers to compare tenders not only on price, but also on quality criteria linked to the subject-matter of the contract, including environmental, social, innovation, European preference, security and resilience aspects where relevant, as well as life-cycle costing. The evaluation of such award criteria should be framed with sufficient safeguards for the fairness of the evaluation process, such as separating price and quality assessments and securing the “four eyes principle”, but could also include other measures such as conducting individual evaluations prior to collective deliberation, maintaining a documented audit trail and publication of all scoring justifications for high-value contracts. A minimum weighting of 30%, and 50% for by their nature labour-intensive contracts whereby the 50% should include significant social considerations, should therefore be provided for quality criteria in the award phase, while allowing public buyers to derogate from this requirement, where the quality of the procured works, supplies or services can be sufficiently ensured through specifications, conditions for performance of contracts, or a combination of any of those instruments with award criteria.

(43) SMEs play a crucial role in the Union’s economy. Therefore, procurement procedures should be designed in a proportionate manner, avoiding unnecessary administrative and financial burdens, to facilitate the access of SMEs to public procurement, including as single direct contractors or as members of groups of economic operators. Conducting procurement through the new digital ecosystem is expected to significantly reduce procedural and administrative barriers for SMEs, including documentation and registration requirements. The division of contracts into meaningful lots remains one of the main tools to facilitate participation of SMEs in public procurement and diversify the supplier base. Therefore, public buyers should actively consider division into lots as part of the procurement design process. In view of the existence of stricter national regimes in a number of Member States which Member States should be able to maintain, Member States should be allowed to impose stricter rules of division into lots. Prompt payment, including through the supply chain further contribute to securing and strengthening the financial standing of SMEs, as do advance payments which should therefore be encouraged.

(44) To ensure sound procurement procedures which yield best quality for money, public buyers should reject tenders where abnormally low prices cannot be properly explained. The circumstances under which tenders appear abnormally low and which conditions tenderers can refer to explain their prices and price elements should be clarified.

(45) It is also necessary to have clearer rules regarding certain aspects related to the contract execution phase, including payments, due to its close link with the procurement procedure itself. It should be clarified how public buyers can apply adjustment mechanisms during the performance of contracts, and how contracts can be modified, particularly in unforeseen circumstances. A clear and transparent adjustment mechanism should be introduced to enable public buyers to modify contract terms in a predictable and proportionate manner. The provisions on modifications of contract should be streamlined to allow for better application in situations justifying a modification without new competitive procedure. Robust safeguards are required to ensure that any substantial modification of the contract, in particular to the scope and content of the mutual rights and obligations of the parties, is subject to adequate justification, where appropriate, prior publication and potential review to combat potential misuse. Where modifications exceed 50% of the initial estimated value of the contract, there is an increased risk that such modification would alter the economic balance of the contract, such modifications should therefore be subject to increased transparency obligations.

(46) Rules should be laid down to ensure traceability of decisions taken throughout the procurement procedures. Documentation of the individual procurement procedure remains key to validate the proper application of this Regulation. It should be automated to the extent possible in the electronic procurement platforms. Transparency of procurement opportunities is the cornerstone of ensuring equal access of all economic operators throughout the Union to procurement Union-wide. Proper publication of such opportunities should therefore be guaranteed through rules on the information to be published. To allow for a data-focused approach, general categories of information should be provided in this Regulation. Categories of information are grouped, allowing the establishment of a comprehensive view from procurement planning to contract completion, yielding collections of relevant data points, instead of a more static paper-based focus on forms, supporting the lowering of administrative burdens. Publication deadlines and modalities, including at national level, should also be laid down in this Regulation.

(47) Concessions and public contracts share the same core objective of enabling public buyers to meet public needs through works or services. They differ primarily in their remuneration structures rather than their essential purpose. Given their similarities, including their reliance on competitive selection procedures, the pursuit of horizontal policy objectives and the potential use of public assets, it is appropriate to harmonize their legal frameworks to the extent possible, to enhance clarity, reduce complexity, and ensure consistent implementation of Union priorities. This approach, supported by flexible procedural rules, provides clearer guidance for public buyers while maintaining necessary distinctions.

(48) In order to address the conceptual uncertainties arising from the definition of concessions under Directive 2014/23/EU, and to distinguish it from other types of contracts such as land-leases agreements, it is necessary to clarify the definition of concession and the concept of operating risk, which constitutes the determining criterion for the qualification of a contract as a concession. The definitional elements set out in this Regulation should be understood as remaining limited to defining the scope of this Regulation, without impacting definitions of operating risks for purposes of other policy areas. The new definition should focus directly on the concessionaire’s exposure to uncertain economic outcomes that may affect the recovery of investments and operating costs under normal market conditions, rather than relying on rigid overly prescriptive categories of risk. This approach ensures that factors such as demand, supply, availability, lifecycle, or performance risks are not treated as standalone legal criteria but are instead regarded as illustration of the underlying economic exposure that characterises the transfer of operating risk. Regulatory mechanism under which operators are remunerated pursuant to statutory or regulated tariffs that fully compensate for their investment and operating costs, thereby eliminating genuine operating risk, do not constitute concessions within the meaning of this Regulation. Regulatory measures whose principal purpose is to grant financial support, or other incentives should not, as such, be considered concessions merely because they are allocated through a competitive procedure and impose certain requirements on beneficiaries. Rights of way relating to the construction and operation of fixed lines or networks should also not be considered concessions where they do not entail an obligation of supply or an acquisition of services by the public authority.

(49) To ensure effective management of concessions from preparation to implementation, this Regulation introduces structured contract management elements, including prior risk assessment to verify that real and economically meaningful operating risk is transferred to the concessionaire. This prior structured risk assessment should identify the principal categories of risk and determine, on the basis of objective elements, the allocation of those risks between the parties. For those purposes regard should be had to the parties’ respective ability to control or influence the occurrence or consequences of the relevant risks, without thereby relieving the concessionaire of exposure to potential losses, even where the public buyer bears part of the risk or where the overall exposure to potential losses is limited. The duration of concessions should be proportionate not only to the time required for the concessionaire to recoup investments but also to foreseeable sectoral developments, such as technological, environmental, climatic, or societal changes, that could affect the concession’s performance. Excessively long durations may increase the need for substantial modifications, thereby undermining the initial risk allocation and competitive conditions. Contracts should enable adaptation to evolving requirements relating to sustainability, technological advancement, security, innovation, and resilience, ensuring concessions remain fit for purpose throughout their lifecycle.

(50) The rules on modifications of concessions have proven difficult to apply in practice. This Regulation, while retaining the existing framework’s exceptions to modification prohibitions, therefore introduces clearer limits better reflecting concessions’ economic realities, namely requiring the economic balance to be preserved and forbidding changes to essential competitive elements. For enhanced transparency on contract modification this Regulation introduces an ex-ante publication obligation for major modifications (exceeding 50%) that should acts as a safeguard against abuses.

(51) eProcurement service providers, whether public or private, play an important role in public procurement in facilitating secure electronic communication. It is therefore necessary to lay down place certain requirements on them, to ensure the functioning of the interoperable exchange of information as well as the resilience of the interoperability network. To provide easy access to cross-border procurement procedures for economic operators, the Commission should establish and operate an eProcurement platform that contains the basic functions necessary for the access to and the conduct of procurement procedures.

(52) To improve cross-border access to procurement procedures, a European standard for procurement procedures should be established which allows economic operators to submit electronic communication such as tenders to public buyers that are using other services. Additionally, a European standard for procurement details should also be requested to be developed by a European standardisation organisation. It should also be clarified that the electronic communication directly within the eProcurement platform chosen by the public buyer remains permitted where it complies with the rules for electronic communication.

(53) An important element of the simplification of procurement procedures is to lower the administrative burden contained in the check of the eligibility of the economic operator. To this end, the Commission should set up an electronic eligibility service, which provides information from the up-to-date digital business credential tool of the economic operator as well as any consortium member or subcontractor participating in the individual procurement procedure. Through the connection from the tool to national databases, public buyers may receive current information on the eligibility of the economic operator.

(54) Procurement-related data, including contract data, has many important uses and purposes: it can provide indications on the functioning of the internal market and help with the detection of fraud, corruption, collusion and misconduct. Where there is more flexibility provided for public buyers in the conduct of procurement procedures, it is important to have better quality of data overall to improve monitoring. Member States should therefore set up National Public Procurement Data Spaces. While the access to procurement data is highly relevant, it is not necessary to require the duplication of data in different sources, as that comes with increased costs without discernible benefit. That is why the national data spaces should provide access to data, including data which may be stored in other databases, only storing or retrieving information when necessary. When there are pre-existing procurement databases, they should form the basis of national public procurement data spaces. The Public Procurement Data Space was set up by the Commission to contain and share information about public procurement and should receive procurement information from the National Public Procurement Data Spaces.

(55) eProcurement platforms constitute critical infrastructure underpinning public procurement across the Union. The information processed through such systems is of a highly sensitive nature. The concentration of such data within platforms that are subject to third-country ownership, control, or undue influence poses significant risks to the security and public safety interests of the Union or one or more of its Member States. Such risks include unauthorised access to sensitive procurement data, interference with the integrity or availability of procurement platforms, exposure to cyberattacks or espionage facilitated by foreign state actors, and the potential exploitation of procurement information for economic or strategic purposes adverse to the Union. Ensuring that eProcurement service providers as well as National Public Procurement Data Spaces remain free from ownership structures or control arrangements that bear risks of undue interference is therefore essential to safeguarding the security and resilience of public procurement infrastructure.

(56) The effectiveness of this Regulation depends not only on clear rules but also on strong governance arrangements at national level. Member States should therefore ensure structured and evidence-based monitoring frameworks for the functioning of their procurement systems, based on the data available in their National Public Procurement Data Spaces, in order to identify shortcomings, assess performance and competition, detect systemic risks and evaluate progress towards the objectives of this Regulation. Such monitoring should support the continuous improvement of national procurement systems and should cover, inter alia, barriers to competition and market access, including for SMEs, vulnerabilities to corruption and fraud, supply-chain dependencies, and the uptake of sustainability, innovation and digitalisation. The results of that monitoring should be made public on a regular basis and should feed into periodic reporting to the Commission.

(57) Member States should also designate a national coordinating authority to ensure effective coordination among the relevant national authorities, facilitate cooperation and the exchange of information between those authorities and act as a single contact point for the Commission, the competent authorities of other Member States and relevant stakeholders.

(58) Professionalisation is a key factor in ensuring effective, efficient and integrity-based public procurement. It requires a long-term and strategic approach to develop and maintain the skills and competencies of public buyers throughout the whole public procurement cycle. The national strategy should provide a coherent framework for setting priorities, coordinating measures, monitoring progress and adapting professionalisation efforts over time. Professionalisation measures should take into account the different needs of public buyers at each level of governance, with particular attention to those with limited administrative capacity. Such measures should also facilitate the participation of economic operators, in particular SMEs, and support other actors contributing to the functioning of the public procurement system. Appropriate support structures, such as competence centres, training bodies, advisory services or helpdesks, play an important role in strengthening the professionalisation of public buyers and improving the overall performance of the public procurement system.

(59) Fraud, favouritism, collusion, corruption and conflicts of interest continue to pose significant risks to the integrity and effectiveness of public procurement. Therefore, in order to avoid any distortion of competition and ensure equal treatment of all economic operators, including in the contract implementation. Public buyers should be required to take appropriate, proportionate and effective measures to prevent, identify and remedy such risks throughout the preparation, award and execution of contracts. Member States should support those efforts through appropriate tools, including data-based risk analysis instruments such as Arachne+ which is the Commission’s corporate data-mining and risk-scoring tool designed to help detect and prevent fraud, conflicts of interest, and irregularities affecting the EU budget. The new digital ecosystem for procurement in the Union aims at ensuring transparency and accountability, thereby contributing to diminishing risks to the integrity of the procedures.

(60) In order to adapt to rapid technical, economic and regulatory developments, the power to adopt acts in accordance with Article 290 of the Treaty should be delegated to the Commission in respect of a number of non-essential elements of this Regulation: amending the public procurement thresholds every two years to account for variations in SDR equivalences, imposing environmental requirements for procurement of certain products, amending the list of Union legislation introducing product or technology sustainability requirements, where necessary following the adoption on new relevant Union legal acts, amending the threshold for the use of BIM in public procurement, adopting mandatory specifications and other public procurement criteria where those elements address identified security and public safety interests of the Union, or where strategic dependencies or risks are identified, amending the definition of covered economic operators, goods, services or works, or supplementing this Regulation by requiring public buyers to apply any of the voluntary restrictive measures set out in this Regulation, amending or extending the required procurement information, designating or establishing the interoperability network, and setting up the rules for the management of the electronic eligibility system and designating the digital business credential tool and the related network. It is of particular importance that the Commission carry out appropriate consultations during its preparatory work, including at expert level, and that those consultations be conducted in accordance with the principles laid down in the Interinstitutional Agreement of 13 April 2016 on Better Law-Making⁹. In particular, to ensure equal participation in the preparation of

⁹ OJ L 123, 12.05.2016, p. 1, http://data.europa.eu/eli/agree_interinstit/2016/512/oj.

delegated acts, the European Parliament and the Council receive all documents at the same time as Member States' experts, and their experts systematically have access to meetings of Commission expert groups dealing with the preparation of delegated acts

(61) In order to ensure uniform conditions for the implementation of this Regulation, implementing powers should be conferred on the Commission for the adoption of decisions regarding the competition levels in certain markets and the feasibility of exempting certain types of public buyers from public procurement rules; to specify what type of specific information should be contained in each public summary and to establish the connection of public summaries and the sequencing of specific information contained in multiple public summaries, as well as related requirements for public buyers and eProcurement service providers to reuse information; the implementation arrangements for the interoperability network, the electronic eligibility service and the data exchange; to establish common specifications covering requirements for the semantic data model of the procurement procedures; and, to determine the procurement information that should be made available to the National Public Procurement Data Space (NPPDS) and Public Procurement Data Space (PPDS), its designation as publicly available, the publication terms such as the date of publication for not initially publicly available information, and the source of the technical validation requirements. Those powers should be exercised in accordance with Regulation (EU) No 182/2011¹⁰ of the European Parliament and of the Council.

(62) Since the objective of this Regulation, namely the harmonisation of rules for public procurement procedures, cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States but can rather, by reason of its scale and effects, be better achieved at Union level, the Union may adopt measures, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity as set out in Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union. In accordance with the principle of proportionality, as set out in that Article, this Regulation does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve that objective.

(63) This Regulation undertakes a regulatory deep cleaning, consolidating relevant rules on public procurement from sectoral legislation into a single reference legislation, this Regulation. It provides a general framework for public procurement rules of more than sector-specific relevance, and will thereby greatly simplify the application of these rules in practice. In order to delete and integrate into this Regulation relevant rules on public procurement which apply regardless of the type of product concerned, it is therefore necessary to amend Regulations (EU) 2023/1542¹¹, (EU) 2024/1157¹², (EU) 2024/1252¹³, (EU) 2024/1735¹⁴, (EU) 2024/1781¹⁵, (EU) 2024/2847¹⁶, (EU) 2024/3110¹⁷ and (EU) 2025/40¹⁸, and Directives 2008/98/EC¹⁹, (EU) 2019/882²⁰, (EU) 2022/2381²¹, (EU) 2023/1791²² and (EU) 2024/1760²³. Regulation (EC) No 1370/2007 should be amended, in order to make applicable for that Regulation the rules provided for in this Regulation on security, security of supply and European preference.

(64) Directives 2014/23/EU, 2014/24/EU and 2014/25/EU should be repealed.

(65) In view of the scale and novelty of the reforms introduced by this Regulation, including the establishment of a common digital ecosystem and data spaces, the strengthening of strategic procurement rules, and the new governance and monitoring requirements, the application of this Regulation should be deferred by two years.

(66) The European Data Protection Supervisor was consulted in accordance with Article 42(1) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725²⁴ and delivered its opinion on [INSERT],

HAVE ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:

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.

13. Regulation (EU) 2024/1252 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 April 2024 establishing a framework for ensuring a secure and sustainable supply of critical raw materials and amending Regulations (EU) No 168/2013, (EU) 2018/858, (EU) 2018/1724 and (EU) 2019/1020 (OJ L, 2024/1252, 3.5.2024, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1252/oj).

14. Regulation (EU) 2024/1735 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 June 2024 on establishing a framework of measures for strengthening Europe’s net-zero technology manufacturing ecosystem and amending Regulation (OJ L, 2024/1735, 28.6.2024, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1735/oj).

15. Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 June 2024 establishing a framework for the setting of ecodesign requirements for sustainable products, amending Directive (EU) 2020/1828 and Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 and repealing Directive 2009/125/EC (OJ L, 2024/1781, 28.6.2024, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1781/oj).

16. Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2024 on horizontal cybersecurity requirements for products with digital elements and amending Regulations (EU) No 168/2013 and (EU) 2019/1020 and Directive (EU) 2020/1828 (Cyber Resilience Act) (OJ L, 2024/2847, 20.11.2024, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/2847/oj).

17. Regulation (EU) 2024/3110 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 November 2024 laying down harmonised rules for the marketing of construction products and repealing Regulation (EU) No 305/2011 (OJ L, 2024/3110, 18.12.2024, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/3110/oj).

18. Regulation (EU) 2024/1735 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 June 2024 on establishing a framework of measures for strengthening Europe’s net-zero technology manufacturing ecosystem and amending Regulation (EU) 2018/1724 (OJ L, 2024/1735, 28.6.2024, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1735/oj).

19. Directive 2008/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 November 2008 on waste and repealing certain Directives (OJ L 312, 22.11.2008, p. 3, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/dir/2008/98/oj).

20. Directive 2014/24/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 February 2014 on public procurement and repealing Directive 2004/18/EC (OJ L 94, 28.3.2014, p. 65, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/dir/2014/24/oj).

21. Directive (EU) 2022/2381 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 November 2022 on improving the gender balance among directors of listed companies and related measures (OJ L 315, 7.12.2022, p. 44, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/dir/2022/2381/oj).

22. Directive (EU) 2023/1791 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 September 2023 on energy efficiency and amending Regulation (EU) 2023/955 (recast) (OJ L 231, 20.9.2023, p. 1, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/dir/2023/1791/oj).

23. Directive (EU) 2024/1760 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 June 2024 on corporate sustainability due diligence and amending Directive (EU) 2019/1937 and Regulation (EU) 2023/2859, (OJ L, 2024/1760, 5.7.2024, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/dir/2024/1760/oj).

24. Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2018 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by the Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Regulation (EC) No 45/2001 and Decision No 1247/2002/EC (OJ L 295, 21.11.2018, p. 39, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2018/1725/oj).